The Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives (Blinken OSA) at Central European University, one of the initiators of the Open Access Movement, each year, awards one fellowship honoring the work, legacy and memory of our friend, Aaron Swartz, either to an unconventional technology expert early in his/her career, or a scholar or activist working at the intersection of humanities, social sciences and technology studies or technological solutions. The $10,000 fellowship is principally intended for those, with or without a degree, who have strong practical skills in developing technological tools to make knowledge and data broadly available to the public; who have an interest in challenging information management practices in libraries and archives; who are ready to contribute to building innovative visual taxonomies or catalogs based on unorthodox ideas; and who can challenge the control of information by governments and publishers to promote civil liberties and online activism.
The 2019 primary focus of the Aaron Swartz fellowship:
Developing (collaborative) intellectual or technological tools that help in validating the authenticity and integrity of factual claims.
Proofs of concept on authenticating digital or digitized documents for scholarly or legal evidence and validation of research in the networked environment of information. We would like to invite a fellow who works on technical and/or epistemological problems related to authenticating evidence.
Proofs of concept on redefining classical cataloging work with the help of emerging machine learning technologies (data classification, neural networks); implementing a recommendation model; predicting the possible sufficient metadata towards automatic cataloging; generating a new kind of research experience through analysis of user behavior and usage statistics.
Terms of Support
Recipients will be supported for 3 months, starting on September 1, 2019. Fellows will conduct their research at Blinken OSA in Budapest. During this time they will work on their research topic which combines technology, humanities and social science perspectives.
The Aaron Swartz fellow will complete her/his project by the end of the fellowship. Blinken OSA supports research towards an application; a research paper with concrete technical proposals; a white paper with policy and/or technological guidelines. The fellow will have the opportunity to give a presentation or workshop to the staff of Blinken OSA and the interested faculty and students of CEU and to cooperate both with the staff of the Archives and also interested faculty members of CEU (from the Center for Media, Data and Society, the Initiative for Regulatory Innovation , the School for Public Policy, the Department of Cognitive Science, Department of Mathematics and its Applications, the Center for Network Science).
Who is Eligible?
To be eligible for the fellowship, applicants must have demonstrable results in technology and humanities. Fellows may not hold other appointments throughout the duration of the Fellowship. International scholars will be considered for the scholarship. The Selection Committee will announce the Fellows in April 2019.
Supporting Documents
Motivation letter explaining the applicant's technology and research experience, and presenting a proposal for a new research or laboratory project to be completed during the term of the fellowship
Curriculum Vitae
One-page description of a laboratory workshop to be presented
Two letters of recommendation
All applications and attached materials are due no later than March 15, 2019, 11:59 p.m. CET, late applications will not be considered. Please email your applications to Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives (Blinken OSA) at Central European University (CEU) at asf@ceu.edu.