Michele Molè receives YAG-SER grant for interdisciplinary research project ‘Panoptiwork’

PhD candidate Michele Molè received a grant from the UG incentive fund for interdisciplinary research for his project Panoptiwork - The Human and the Digital at Work. Fourteen researchers from seven faculties will produce interdisciplinary research and seminars on labour and digitalisation.

Starting from January 2023 computer scientists, sociologists, economists, geographers, lawyers, philosophers, political scientists will meet to discuss a topic that affects the lives of us all: labour and digitalisation. Our daily working routines – whether manual or intellectual work – are changing at an extremely fast pace especially as a result of the COVID19 pandemic, and workplace digitalisation promises to stay in the future with major implications on most of working-related issues.

Digitalisation and AI

It is widely researched in many disciplines how digitalisation fundamentally changes labour tasks and reshapes organisations. All these novelties are multi-faceted and highly interdisciplinary, that’s why Panoptiwork aims to combine insights from different disciplines to better understand and explore their implications.

Digital technologies indeed are bringing a number of challenges in workplaces. Working routines, telework, employer-employee’s interactions, algorithmic management, new forms of labour such platform work: merging the human and the digital at work triggers ethical and societal implications. Yet digitalisation could create new opportunities to improve the workforce working conditions, well-being, reskilling and many and codetermination in contemporary workplaces. However, it to fulfil this promise, interdisciplinary research is needed to address questions about the organization of work, working conditions, power relations, ethics of business and legal protection.

Bringing together researchers with different backgrounds and expertise on such a topical and cross-cutting issue as the digital transformation of the workplace, in the years to come, we believe, will contribute with interesting outcomes for most of scientific community involved with such issues. The project includes a blog and a podcast that, with the help of a student assistant, will disseminate the findings of our research. In 2023 and 2024, then, a public roundtable and an interdisciplinary conference on labour and digitalisation will be organised. In the contacts section of the blog you can email us if you wish to contribute with an article or suggestions for the forthcoming podcast.

About the fund

Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research and teaching are vital in our bid to tackle the challenges facing our complex world. In addition, disciplines increasingly collaborate to generate as much impact as possible. More and more of these interdisciplinary initiatives are being developed, including at our University.

The aim of the YAG-SER grant is to develop innovative ideas or gauge the feasibility of an idea. It is designed to be a step towards a larger project, such as an application for substantial funding from an external funder, a new teaching track, new modes of instruction, or the formation of a large-scale consortium to work on a new theme with internal and external partners.

Researchers involved in ‘Panoptiwork – the Human and the Digital at Work’

Faculty of Arts:

• Dr. Suvi Alt, Assistant Professor of International Relations

Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences:

• Dr. Wike Been, Assistant Professor of Sociology of Labour
• Dr. Zoltán Lippényi, Assistant Professor of Organisational Sociology
• Prof. Rafael Wittek, Professor of Theoretical Sociology

Faculty of Economics and Business:

• Dr. Eveline Hage, Assistant Professor of Change Management

Faculty of Law :

• Prof. Jeanne Pia Mifsud Bonnici, Professor of European Technology Law and Human Rights
• Michele Molè, PhD candidate in Labour Law
• Prof. Saskia Peters, Professor of Labour Law
• Prof. Beryl Ter Haar, Professor of European and Comparative Labour Law

Faculty of Philosophy:

• Prof. Lisa Herzog, Professor of Political Philosophy
• Dr. Tatiana Llaguno Nieves , Postdoctoral Researcher in Political Philosophy

Faculty of Science and Engineering :

• Dr. George Azzopardi, Assistant Professor of Computer Science

Faculty of Spatial Sciences:

• Dr. Femke D. Cnossen, Postdoctoral Researcher in Regional Labour Markets
• Prof. Sierdjan Koster, Associate Professor in Economic Geography

This article was published by the Faculty of Law.