“Internet for Survival”: How the effective and democratic evolution of the Internet towards an infrastructure/ecosystem supporting resilience and equality depends on deeply intertwined considerations rooted in technological, social and economic sciences.  

INSCI is a multidisciplinary conference that brings together scholars and practitioners at the intersection of technological, social and economic sciences seeking to learn how the Internet can be used to make our world a better place. Its insights are expected to create a better understanding of this complex socio-technical system we call “Internet”, for instance to inform political decisions on the technological priorities for public funding and to drive a more sustainable and equitable development of the innovation and social ecosystems it supports.

INSCI welcomes fundamental and applied multidisciplinary research, including policy-oriented studies and works offering technological solutions, that investigate the role of Internet for sustainable development, social and economic resilience, collective intelligence, reliable information processing and protection, and, more generally, for a holistic understanding of societal transformations, governance shifts and innovation quests. 

INSCI welcomes works done in interdisciplinary teams that may include computer scientists, sociologists, policy makers, economists, designers and artists, or complex system scholars, among others, preferably uniting expertise from social, economic and technical sciences. This kind of work is expected to close the gap between societal / economic impact and requirements and technological developments, seen as both drivers and consequences of each other.

Thus, INSCI 2023 welcomes submissions to a wide range of topics including but not limited to the following:

TOPICS

Green, Sustainability, and Innovation

    The challenges of Responsible Research and Innovation on Internet solutions
    The technological, social and economic benefits of Transnational and Inter-Cultural Projects
     Internet solutions supporting Environmental policies related to Climate Change
    Green Computing in a holistic perspective: trade-offs of computing power, social benefits, economic and environmental impacts (e.g. blockchains)
    Design, Implementation, and Analysis of Novel Platforms for alternative distributed economic models
    Distributed environmental awareness: creating a collective consciousness of environmental issues and possible solutions at individual and collective level. Collective intelligence, sensing and action
    Energy optimisation from from networked production to shared consumption, relying on top-down and bottom-up approaches
    Networks for circular economy models: conceiving and putting in place platforms and solutions effectively supporting circular and social economy models, collaborative making, art and creativity

Enabling Technologies, Applications and Infrastructures

    Social implications of Reinforcement Algorithms, Machine Learning and Intelligent Systems
    Feasibility and social /economic aspects of Algorithms for mediation content
    Data Sovereignty and inclusion aspects of Cloud, Grid and Cluster Computing
    Recommender, Adaptive and Context Aware Systems: design, social and inclusion aspects, feasibility and adoption
    Networking and Wireless Systems as enablers: inclusion, health, privacy and pervasiveness aspects
    People-driven Internet Technologies and Applications, including Collaborative 
Platforms & Social Search, Open Data and New Interfaces 

Societal Structures

    How will Internet of Things change Society and interaction models
    Digital Competences and Participation
    Virtual Communities and Behavioural Patterns: how are they affected by the technological platforms being used 
    Knowledge, Education, Technology Enhanced Learning, and Societal Web Impact on Internet Evolution 
    Offline and Online Human Behaviour with Emphasis on Social Media and Online/ER/VR 
Interactions 

Digital Politics and Governance

    Internet and Political Participation
    Online Political Freedoms in Policing and in Effect: Regional and Local Perspectives, technological impacts and requirements
    Citizen Involvement into Decision-Making: Platforms, Actors, and Experiences
    Political Discussions Online: Issues and Groups Behind Them, technical and collaborative solutions to moderate them
     E-governance Practices of Today’s Authorities across the world
    Internet regulation: Security vs. Openness

Free Communication Patterns and Democracy

    Freedom of Speech Online: a Contested Area of Policing
    Algorithms as New Total Communicative Power
    Extremist and Radical Talk Online and Policies or socio-Technical solutions to counteract it
    Universal Internet Freedoms vs. Dark Web
    Participatory Democracy and Budgeting: citizens’ involvement in democratic processes, for more equal and inclusive resource allocation
    Cognitive, Psychological Aspects and Incentive Mechanisms for online Engagement, Collaboration and Participation  (smart citizenship, e-literacy, participation skills, decision support and recommendations for informed citizens and collective actions)
    E-Democracy and E-Participation: risks and opportunities, lessons learnt from currently deployed solutions (e.g. e-voting, Decidim)
    Reliable online information: collaborative models and processes to produce/qualify online information (e.g. post-truth Practices Online, filter bubble and fact checking), for health (e.g. vaccination), democracy (international decision-making, political campaigns, opinion and sentiment modelling, governmental censure and influence), economy (product labelling, ethical marketing), safety of online ecosystems (children protection, fake news, digital rebels)
    Crowdsourcing: implications, enablers

Sustainable Network Economy

    Legal, economic, technological and innovation hurdles related to Intellectual Property and the Digital Commons 
    New Collaborative Markets Analytics 
    Economic Power of Online Platforms: Expropriation of Digital Labour, Open Data solutions and their applicability
    Digital Corporations: World Leaders and Regional Alternatives
    Analogous Elites, Technological Precariat
    Digital Professions and Reshaping of Online Labour Markets
    New decentralised economic models: enabling and sustaining a distributed ecosystem of platforms and solutions intrinsically respectful of privacy, self-disclosure and digital sovereignty
    The consumer perspective: unlawful profiling, discrimination and lock-in, automated contracts and warranties

Global Access Opportunities

    Internet Resilience: Defining/Comparing non-disconnection Technologies, Monitoring Approaches and Internet Governance Models ensuring resiliency and citizens’ empowerment and sovereignty
    Global and Local Faces of Today’s Digital Divide
    Comparing existing and future Open Distance Education and Life-long Learning Environments on online/Virtual Reality Platforms, Practices Around the World
    Global Media Online: Translation and Language Divide
    Empowerment of Disabled with New Body Extensions
    Post-human and Tech-human Individuals and Societies

Data Sharing and Protection

    Data Openness vs. User Protection: tech and social aspects of open data policies
    Limits of Privacy and Anonymization, their dependance on technological solutions and intended applications
    Clouds, Big Data and Data Protection Regulation vs. knowledge sharing and open innovation
    Global Tech Powers and Alternative Solutions based on decentralisation
    Open Science and Access to Scientific Production: technological enablers, platform governance, economic and innovation aspects