Georgetown and Project Liberty's Institute Award $1.9 Million in Tech & Public Policy Grants

Funding supports research on biomanipulation, law enforcement training, social media safety and more

WASHINGTON, June 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Tech & Public Policy program at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2023-2024 Tech & Public Policy grants, totaling nearly $2 million in research funding. Grantees will focus on tech policy issues ranging from biomanipulation and law enforcement training to social media safety.

In partnership with Project Liberty's Institute (formerly The McCourt Institute), the digital governance arm of the independent 501(c)3, the Tech & Public Policy grant program supports technologists, ethicists, legal scholars and social scientists working in collaboration to explore and articulate novel uses and misuses of technology. Research projects investigate the effects of technology on individuals and society, as well as how to address the challenge of new technologies born in the information age, which have outstripped regulatory frameworks designed for the machine age.

The 2023-2024 Tech & Public Policy grantees include:

• Building a Realistic Research Platform for Open Science: Leticia Bode, Provost Distinguished Associate Professor, Georgetown University; Emily Vraga, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota
• The Effects of Social Media on Overall Media Use, Misinformation Acceptance, Happiness and Social Connectedness During a Presidential Campaign: Jonathan Ladd, Associate Professor, Georgetown University; Kevin Arceneaux, Centre for Political Research, Sciences Po; Martial Foucault, Centre for Political Research, Sciences Po
• The Effects of WhatsApp on Politics: A Multi-Country Deactivation Experiment: Tiago Ventura, Assistant Professor, Georgetown University; Joshua Tucker, Professor, New York University
• Can governments learn digital governance innovation from the civic tech community?: Pamela Herd, Professor, Georgetown University; Sebastian Jilke, Provost's Distinguished Associate Professor, Georgetown University; Donald Moynihan, Professor, Georgetown University
• Redesigning the Governance Stack: New Institutional Approaches to Information Economy Harms: Paul Ohm, Professor of Law, Georgetown University; Julie Cohen, Mark Claster Mamolen Professor of Law and Technology, Georgetown University; Meg Leta Jones, Provost's Distinguished Associate Professor, Georgetown University
• Biomanipulation: The Looming Threat of the Social Media Frontier: Laura Donohue, Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law and National Security, Georgetown University; Anna Cave, Executive Director, Georgetown Law's Center on National Security; Jenny Reich, Georgetown Center on National Security
• Developing a Scalable Virtual Reality Training and Evaluation Platform for Active Bystandership in Law Enforcement: Evan Barba, Associate Professor, Georgetown University; Cassandra Ramdath, Director of Research and Evaluation, Center for Innovations in Community Safety
• Using Large-Scale Video, Text, and Legacy/Social Media Data to Understand and Reduce Polarization in Local Governance: Rebecca Johnson, Assistant Professor, Georgetown University

Creating Change through Technology Policy

In the fall of 2022, the McCourt School and Project Liberty's Institute awarded the first round of Tech & Public Policy grants. This year's recipients demonstrate the increasing importance of cooperation across tech policy experts and policymakers to create impactful change in our communities.

"The scope of work by the 2023-2024 Tech & Public Policy grantees is immense, as is the impact of technology on our global community," said McCourt School Dean Maria Cancian. "These grants support research that leverages social media data to gain important insights about urgent topics like political polarization and open research, as well as tackling issues such as digital governance innovations, biomanipulation, and the potential of AR/VR for police training. The McCourt School and our Tech & Public Policy program is pleased to continue to support this work as part of our broader efforts to shape and advance tech to better serve the common good."

"Right now, social networking is concentrated in a tiny number of platforms that gather vast amounts of people's data, designed using algorithms that keep us scrolling," noted Constance Bommelaer de Leusse, Executive Director of Project Liberty's Institute. "Our work with Georgetown and in support of these grantees will accelerate Project Liberty's mission to build a better web for a better world: one in which governance and responsible technology can result in a digital society that benefits the many and not just the few."

To learn more about the work of this year's grantees, click here.

About the McCourt School

The McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University is a diverse community of problem-solvers, committed to moving bold ideas to action. We are global citizens, conducting policy-relevant research, and building bridges between our work and the communities we serve.

About Project Liberty

Project Liberty is an international nonprofit accelerating the world's transition to an open, inclusive data economy that empowers people over platforms by working to mobilize the foundation of a new internet for the common good. Project Liberty and its Institute are building a global alliance for responsible technology and bringing together technologists, academics, policymakers, civil society and citizens to build a safer, healthier tech ecosystem.

SOURCE Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy