Vidi grant for reseach into vulnerability in the digital administrative state

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a Vidi grant of €800,000 to prof. Sofia Ranchordás. With this grant Ranchordás, Full Professor of European and Comparative Public Law at the University of Groningen, will develop her own innovative five-year research plan and will establish her own research group which will focus on the vulnerability in the digital administrative state.

Digitalization and automation aim to promote efficiency, reduce bureaucracy, and improve communication between citizens and governments. For citizens with average digital and literacy skills, stable personal and socioeconomic conditions, digital technology has indeed brought many advantages.

However, as the Childcare Benefits Scandal (Toeslagenaffaire) has showed, these advantages have not been equally shared by citizens placed in vulnerable situations (e.g., poverty, sudden death of loved ones). For thousands of individuals, digital technology has disconnected them from their rights and created greater government anxiety. Existing rules and principles of public law (e.g., good administration) still do not account for administrative vulnerability, that is, the inability to exercise rights on equal terms.

Ranchordas: ‘We can all be vulnerable at some point in life. The sudden loss of a loved one, poverty, feeling overwhelmed by challenging circumstances can reduce our ability to exercise our rights before government (e.g., apply for unemployment benefits). When this happens, government, with its increasing digital and dehumanized side, is blind to this vulnerability and so is public law. Therefore this project explores how administrative vulnerability affects the legal position of citizens, how government fails them, how to empower vulnerable citizens, and redesign public law for inclusion in the digital age’.

Vidi

The NWO Talent Programme offers personal grants to talented, creative researchers. This enables them to conduct the research of their choice. The Talent Scheme has three funding instruments (Veni, Vidi, Vici) tailored to various phases in researchers' scientific careers. Vidi grants are intended for experienced researchers who have been conducting successful research for some years after gaining a PhD and have demonstrated the ability to independently generate and effect innovative ideas.

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Prof. Sofia Ranchordás

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This article was published by the Faculty of Law.