Kiem project on safety and dangers in the digital world results in new research network
No less than 33 project received a Leiden Kiem grant in 2023. How did they fare? Olga Bogolyubova shares experiences from her project ‘Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Safety and Danger in the Digital World’.
The Kiem project ‘Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Safety and Danger in the Digital World’ brought together researchers from various fields that study the different forms of harmful and problematic online behaviors, and the impact of such behaviors.
Hi Olga, what was the aim of the project?
‘To bring researchers from different fields together for a two day event where we showcased our research and meet each other. We are hoping that this will be a stepping stone towards forming ongoing collaborations in different forms and perhaps applying for bigger projects later on. Most of us had never met before, so it was also a networking event. Participants of he workshop were from different universities both within the Netherlands and from abroad. I think it all went quite well. There was a broad range of disciplines, representing social and behavioral , as well as computational approaches, for instance using AI to detect harmful content and natural language processing applications to detecting hate speech n online communication. There was a good mix of topics and methods to share and discuss.’
What takeaways did the event yield?
‘We discussed the top topics that we think would be interesting to take forward to further collaboration. One of the themes highlighted was technology facilitated sexual violence, understanding the phenomenon and groups vulnerable to it. There were a number of people in the group who have expertise in researching image based abuse and researching sexual violence and sexual victimization in online context. In addition, interaction of offline and online experiences in determining this landscape of risk were highlighted. For instance how people’s offline experiences, such as experiencing adversity during childhood, potentially shape young people's experiences online. It was very good to meet each other and exchange ideas. The next natural step, if we want to, later apply for more ambitious projects, is to build up an ongoing collaboration.’
What would you say is the biggest benefit of disciplines meeting and getting to know each other in this way?
‘I strongly believe in interdisciplinary approaches in research, in particular when we're talking about researching online behaviors. You can want to study psychological aspects, but how are you going to study that if you do not join with people who can actually help you collect data and who understand how linguistic data works and how to process it? And vice versa when people with no expertise in psychological science? I think the general benefit is conversation between disciplines and enrichment of personal ideas.’
What do you think of the Kiem grant as a financial instrument for stimulating interdisciplinary research?
‘It’s a good instrument. It allows flexibility in terms of what you can fund and how, so it does not dictate anything. I think it’s a good way for researchers, either at the beginning of their scientific career or new to Leiden or the Dutch environment, to start building a portfolio. So it provides a nice stepping stone.’