In the last few years, humans have generated more data than in the past twenty thousand. Today there are about 40 billion connected devices. This systemic shift in how we operate, communicate, register and process data is changing our economy, politics and social interactions. The implications of digital transformation are manifold and range from a changing landscape of economic power, to the redefinition of privacy, to the geopolitical implications of the emergence of data.
This process, however, also brings with it numerous challenges linked to the generation and distribution of income. The Social Contract—that in the US was centered around social mobility and in Europe around economic security—looks increasingly broken and the gap between the highly skilled and everyone else is growing. These technological and economic transformations have reshaped the relationships between education, work, opportunities and welfare, rendering our previous social contract outdated, and making it necessary to establish a new one that benefits everyone.
The understanding and governance of systemic shifts of this nature requires a new set of policies and regulations to foster innovation around data and its governance while improving social inclusion. This research program tries to support this process by analyzing the transformation of the digital domain and the fracture of our social contract from a multidisciplinary perspective and advancing new and realistic solutions for future agreements.
The first work package (Digital Economy, 2022), analyzed the social impact of the digital economy and how to achieve inclusion while fostering innovation. The second work package (Data Economy, 2023) studied the emergence and governance of the data economy. In 2025, the third work package is exploring the evolving geopolitics of the digital era.
The project is being developed across four work packages that will run in sequence with overlaps. The first three address different questions raised by the emergence of the digital revolution at the individual, company, regional, national and European levels. They rely on the input of top researchers in the field from top institutions with a global approach, but also from researchers with a regional focus as well as professionals from the private sector, thus drawing lessons from the different fields to provide a holistic analysis that will serve as the basis of a fourth work package related to the new social contract, with proposals and recommendations for policy makers.
1. The Digital Economy - 2. The Data Economy - 3. The Geopolitics of the Digital Era - 4. The New Social Contract
#1 THE DIGITAL ECONOMY
This first work package (2022-23) analyzes the social impact of the digital economy and the resulting power relations while drawing conclusions on how the social contract needs to evolve to respond to the new reality.
Our report deconstructs the perception that technology and the digital economy are the solutions to deep social problems. Trends in the digital economy reveal that institutions, which have previously not satisfied citizen demands, are now under closer scrutiny and criticism. Many of the developments in the digital economy, such as blockchain and crypto, aim to replace existing institutions and structures of authority because they failed in the past in the eyes of many.
Digital inclusion cannot be the victim of innovation. Therefore, it should not be argued that there is an inevitable trade-off. On the contrary, societies need to work to find the balance that brings everyone along according to their social particularities and contexts.
Publications:
- Policy Paper 1 Can the EU Digital Markets Act Achieve its Goals? (2022) by Renda
- Policy Paper 2 Is There Social Value in Crypto Economics? (2022) by Dempsey, Otero-Iglesias and Oliver.
- Policy Paper 3 Closing the Digital Skill Gap (2022) by Stephany
- Policy Paper 4 Supporting SMEs in the Digital Transformation (2022) by Meier, Köhne, Wolf and Gerling
- Policy Paper 5 Digital Inclusion vs. Innovation Momentum (2022) by Chakravorti, Chaturvedi and Compton
- Policy Paper 6 Public Sector Artificial Intelligence Strategies (2022) by Entsminger
- Policy Paper 7 Technological Foresight (2022) by Loesekrug-Pietri
- Policy Paper 8 Cultivating Resilience in Rural Areas (2022) by Pordomingo and Tomasello.
- The Digital Economy and the New Social Contract Report (2022) by Otero-Iglesias and Oliver.
- Publications
#2 the data economy
#2 the data economy
The second work package (2023-24) studies the emergence and governance of the data economy, and how it can be fair, competitive, and safe.
EU regulators want to promote innovative data-driven services, increase consumer choice, reduce costs, and stimulate competition, while giving control over data to companies and people who generate them. How should regulators define, regulate, and supervise the data economy to achieve this? How should the EU approach it? The overall aim needs to be to build a concept of data economy within the internal market, across all sectors.
In order to have a positive impact on the economy and society, the future data economy should be fair, competitive, and safe. It should have the same rules for all participants, promote incentives – e.g., compensation – for innovation, and fairly allocate liability to better protect consumers, also from a privacy point of view.
Publications:
- Policy Paper 9 – Data Policy: A Conceptual Framework (2023) by Renda
- Policy Paper 10 – Data Collaboratives: Enabling a Healthy Data Economy through Partnerships by Verhulst
- Policy Brief - Data Collaboratives
- Policy Paper 11 – Towards a Fair Data Economy: Key Lessons from Finland on Building a National Roadmap (2023) by Halenius, Rastas, Toivanen and Kippo
- Policy Brief - Roadmap for a Fair Data Economy
- Policy Paper 12 – Digital Public Infrastructures: Lessons from India for a Thriving Data Economy (2023) by Sharma, Ramanathan, Iyier and Abraham
- Policy Brief - Digital Public Infrastructures
- Policy Brief - Data Trust Policy by Houser
- Report - The Future Data Economy: Competitive, Fair, Safe (2024) by Otero-Iglesias and González-Agote
- Publications
#3 the geopolitics of the digital era
#3 the geopolitics of the digital era
The third work package (2024-25) examines how the technological race is changing the power relations between states and between states and companies, and shaping the creation of a new social contract.
In recent years, the intersection of digital transformation and geopolitics has emerged as a key arena shaping global power dynamics. States now find themselves entangled in a complex web of competition and cooperation, vying to create, produce, regulate, and control technology and to curb the influence of foreign state and non-state actors, even as they seek their help to combat disinformation and advance the digital transition. This pursuit has undermined traditional governance structures and given rise to the emergence of distinct “digital empires” across jurisdictions, with each striving to assert dominance and influence in this digital revolution in search of enhanced consumer protection and increased economic security and strategic autonomy.
The issue of who “owns” the capacity to foster innovation, has or denies access to knowledge, controls data, has the necessary hard and soft infrastructure, and shapes and enforces legislation in the digital domain, will be central to the geopolitical considerations of the coming decades.
Publications:
- Policy Paper 13 - Reclaiming Digital Sovereignty: The EU’s Role in the Geopolitics of Digital Governance (2025), by Schneider.
- Policy Brief - Europe's Strategy for Global Tech Governance
- Policy Paper 14 - Beyond Lego: The Need for EU-Based Building Blocks of Technology (2025), by Ferreira-Gomes, Okano-Heijmans and van den Wijngaard
- Policy Brief - Building Technological Sovereignty from Within
- Policy Paper 15 - From Gatekeeper to Gameplayer: Reclaiming Europe's Strategic Relevance in the Data-Driven Age (2025), by Ciurak
- Policy Brief - Rewriting the Playbook: Reforms for the Data + Generative AI Economy.
- Policy Paper 16 - European Monetary Sovereignty in the Digital Era (2025), by Otero-Iglesias, Subacchi, and Rodriguez-Gordo.
- Policy Brief - European Monetary Sovereignty in the Digital Age
- Executive Report - The Geopolitics of the Digital Revolution: Europe's Defining Test, by Otero-Iglesias and Rodriguez-Gordo
- Publications
#4 A NEW SOCIAL CONTRACT
#4 A NEW SOCIAL CONTRACT
The fourth work package (2026-27) builds on the three previous packages of research to identify critical social fractures, map and analyze current policy responses, and propose pathways to renew the social contract foundations – reinforcing social cohesion, trust in institutions, and citizens’ sense of ownership of the digital revolution.
The digital revolution has reshaped the foundations of economic and political power, leading to the fracture of the very principles on which the modern social contract was built. Following Rousseau, that contract rests on an exchange between individuals and the collective: citizens surrender part of their natural independence in return for political liberty; anchored in equality, basic rights and freedoms, and the general will. When the power to shape common life shifts from citizens and institutions to private or external actors, this equilibrium is undermined.
The four pillars of this work package each address a dimension where this rupture has become most visible.
- Concentration challenges equality and collective self-determination, as digital and economic power accumulates in a few hands.
- Redistribution tests whether property and wealth still serve the common good.
- Autonomy determines whether citizens can exercise genuine autonomy within an increasingly dependent digital economy.
- New forms of governance ask how institutions can be renewed so that technological progress once again reflects the volonté générale rather than narrow interests.
Together, these themes trace the fault lines of today’s broken social contract and set the ground for imagining how liberty, equality, and the common good might be rebuilt in the digital age to sustain economic and social prosperity.
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In partnership with
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In collaboration with
In collaboration with
Fletcher School at Tufts University, Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Oxford Internet Institute, Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London, Centre for Digital Governance at Hertie School, Joint European Disruptive Initiative (JEDI), Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), The GovLab at New York University (NYU), the Finnish Innovation Fund SITRA, the Indian Software Product Industry Roundtable (ISPIRT), the University of Hamburg, and The Clingendael Institute.