ALGOWATCH is being developed by a consortium made up of Savoir Devenir (coordinator, France), Maynooth University (Ireland), Association for Communication and Media Culture -DKMK (Croatia) and Iscte-University Institute of Lisbon (Portugal).
The partners share the same MIL holistic approach (modular, competence-based, engagement by design, multi-stakeholder involvement). They also overlap in expertise in various areas, especially MIL resource development and training in and outside schools.
They can complement and exchange competences in some specific areas, in particular game design (NUIM), algorithmic disinformation (SD), impact evaluation (MKDK) and outreach (ISCTE). The associated Partners also will contribute to the complementarity and to the cross-country comparisons and exchanges. They will support the workshops and the exhibits and share their expertise in those domains.
Savoir Devenir
Savoir Devenir is a French non-profit organization created in 2017, that aims to support citizens in taking ownership of their media and digital life through actions in favor of:Media and Information Literacy (MIL), digital citizenship and internet governance
It is backed by the UNESCO Chair “Savoir Devenir in digital sustainable development”, located at the University Sorbonne Nouvelle.
Savoir*Devenir has played a major role in capacity-building in the field of MIL, contributing to a dozen international high profile projects with over a hundred partners, including institutions, ICT, media companies, institutions, and journalism and fact-checking collectives.
A certified training institution, Savoir*Devenir has produced a dozen of Moocs and more than 100 training workshops for 4 000 trainers of trainees: educators, librarians, journalists, developers and policy-makers.
In its advocacy mission, Savoir*Devenir has played a leading role in structuring the field of MIL, at EU and international level (UNESCO, Council of Europe, European Commission) participating namely to expert groups and contributing to the competence framework Digcomp 2.2, the CoE guidelines for Digital citizenship Education In France, it contributes its expertise to entities such as Ministry of Culture, ARCOM, CNIL and has participated in evaluation jurys and audits, at the French Senate and Parliament.
In France, Algowatch is supported by the French Ministry of Culture.
Maynooth University
The National University of Ireland Maynooth (NUIM) is a public university located 25 kilometres outside of Dublin, Ireland. It is one of four constituent universities of the National University of Ireland. With over 15,000 students from more than 100 countries, Maynooth offers a range of programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the humanities, social science and science and engineering.
NUIM is a partner in the ADAPT Centre for Digital Content Technology and AI (2021-2026) funded by Science Foundation Ireland. ADAPT includes academics from multiple disciplines from 8 Irish universities, is involved in a number of projects focused on foundational AI, machine translation, bias in AI, AI ethics and understanding and countering disinformation and hate speech.
It also has full-time staff dedicated to Education and Public Engagement (EPE) and an ongoing programme on AI literacy. Kerr is a co-PI in ADAPT and science lead of the Transparent Digital Governance strand. She collaborated with the artist Caroline Sinders on the development of the ‘Flag for Removal’ game for the ‘BIAS: Built this Way’ exhibition at the Science Gallery Dublin in 2021/2022.
This exhibition provided a number of in person and online interactive experiences by Irish and international artists to enable them to explore the ways in which algorithms and humans can be biased.
Association for Communication and Media Culture
Association for Communication and Media Culture (DKMK) is the most prominent civil society organization for media education in Croatia. University professors together with students of journalism, media and communication science established the organization in 2011.
The association has become recognized for their approach to media literacy with children, parents and teachers throughout Croatia. Additionally, they work with librarians and professionals in educational system and in the times of pandemic DKMK has introduced unique workshops on media literacy for senior citizens.
DKMK has strong cooperation with Education and Teacher Training Agency (AZOO) and is providing professional oriented media literacy educational programs for teachers. Since 2011. DKMK organized more than 1.500 workshops, interactive lectures and webinars throughout Croatia for more than 40.000 children, students, parents, teachers, librarians, educators, and seniors.
Most of the workshops is focused on Internet addiction, Cyberbullying prevention, Advertising and Propaganda, Representation of Beauty and Stereotypes in the Media, Influence of Video Games, Sexting, Disinformation, Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence. Thanks to the scientific work of academics that established the organization, it is recognized for research work in media literacy field.
The organization published 18 educational brochures, manuals, and books for children, young, parents and educational professionals.
Iscte - University Institute of Lisbon
The Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-Iscte) of the Iscte- University Institute of Lisbon, is a R&D unit in the area of social sciences dedicated to studying contemporary social problems from a multidisciplinary perspective.
CIES-Iscte’s main scientific domain is sociology, developing relevant activity in the fields of public policy, political science, communication, education, modern and contemporary history and social work.
CIES-Iscte’s activity is characterised by a demanding articulation between basic research and applied research mainly directed at the design, monitoring and evaluation of public policies in various sectors and areas of intervention. CIES-Iscte is currently involved in various international projects focused on countering disinformation (IBERIFIER., led by Navarra University), media literacy, algorithmic literacy and AI (Algowatch, led by Savoir Devenir), and digital citizenship (Digital Citizenship Education, Council of Europe).
Digital citizenship is key because it empowers citizens to create, share, socialize, communicate, work, play and learn online and offline in an active and responsible way throughout life. This is key in a context marked by the declining trust of democratic public institutions and processes, threats to freedom of expression and the lack of opportunities to live and learn through democratic processes.