Francqui leerstoel - prof. dr. Stefania Milan (Universiteit van Amsterdam) aan de School voor Sociale Wetenschappen

The Francqui Chair, existing since 1933, is one of the cornerstone initiatives of the Francqui Foundation. This Chair encourages collaboration and exchanges between Universities. This, in turn, enriches academic environments, advances academic excellence and interdisciplinary research, and also contributes to strengthening the different universities’ reputations.

Francqui Chair - Francqui Foundation

Overall theme

Digital infrastructures that collect, process, and circulate data have become the backbone of contemporary governance. From digital identity systems to algorithmic welfare allocation and biometric technologies, these infrastructures increasingly regulate the relationship between citizens, markets, and the state. This lecture series explores the rise of governance by data infrastructure—a new mode of rule that operates through data, standards, protocols, and algorithms. By tracing how these infrastructures—which I call “regulatory data infrastructure”—shape citizenship, sovereignty, and inequality, the series investigates what is at stake for democracy when data becomes both the medium and the object of governance.

Programme UHasselt Francqui Chair Lectures 2025-2026

Lecture 1 (Pre-inaugural lecture):
"Who Governs When Data Decides? Democracy in the Age of Infrastructures"
September 15, 2025 (10-12h) (Hasselt University, Campus Hasselt, Aula 1)

Lecture 2 (Inaugural lecture): 
"Governing by Data Infrastructure: Power and Control in the Data-Driven State"
December 17, 2025 (14-16h) (Hasselt University, Campus Hasselt, Aula 1)

The registration deadline for this lecture has passed.

Lecture 3: 
"The Datafied Citizen: Agency, Identity, and Belonging in the Datafied State"
February 20, 2026 (14-16h) (Hasselt University, Campus Hasselt, Aula 2)

You can register for this lecture until February 13.

Lecture 4:
"Sovereignty Rewired: Public Authority and Corporate Power in the Data-Driven State"
March 30, 2026 (14-16h) (Hasselt University, Campus Hasselt, Aula 2)

Lecture 5:
"Inequality by Design? Exclusion and Invisibility in the Data-Driven State"
May 27, 2026 (14-16h) (Hasselt University, Campus Hasselt, Aula 2)

Francqui Chair Holder

Stefania Milan, PhD, is full professor at University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands) and a leading scholar in Social Sciences and Media & Communication Studies, specifically in the interdisciplinary field of Critical Data Studies. Her research focuses on critically understanding the interaction between data-driven technologies and society, based on innovative computational social science methods. She recently started her European ERC Advanced Grant DATAGOV (2025-2029). She has previously successfully acquired and completed two other EU ERC grants. She has strong links with various international universities and research organisations and holds several academic positions in Europe (the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Hungary, etc.) and North America (Canada, United States, etc.). In addition, her research activities focus on supporting early-career researchers and maximising civic impact through science communication and close interaction with civil society organisations on digital rights.

Francqui Chair Promoter

Jo Pierson, PhD, is Full Professor of Responsible Digitalisation at Hasselt University and Professor of Media and Communication Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences & Solvay Business School at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He is head of the School of Social Sciences at UHasselt and affiliate of research centre imec-SMIT at VUB. His research focuses on digital platforms, data privacy, public values in data-driven technologies, edtech, AI, and user empowerment. He has been an expert for various government initiatives on European, Belgian and Flemish level regarding policy, design and usage of digital technologies.

Lecture 1 (Pre-inaugural):
"Who Governs When Data Decides? Democracy in the Age of Infrastructures"
September 15, 2025 (10-12h) (Hasselt University, Campus Hasselt, Aula 1)

The introductory lecture sets the scene and discusses the characteristics of a regulatory data infrastructure and how this far-reaching digitisation is transforming the governance of our democracy. This is highly relevant as data infrastructures have become key instruments of governance in contemporary societies. Moving beyond their technical functions, platforms and algorithmic systems—such as navigation apps, social media feeds, welfare databases, and biometric controls—actively shape mobility, visibility, and legitimacy. They perform regulatory functions by encoding decisions about risk, eligibility, and citizenship into code and data flows. This ‘rule through design’ generates profound democratic dilemmas of opacity, accountability, inequality, and sovereignty, as public authority and private power intertwine. Yet data infrastructures are also contested and re-politicized through civic resistance, legal challenges, and participatory design. Therefore, there is a need for reclaiming democratic agency by making infrastructures themselves subject to principles of transparency, justice, and collective control in the data-driven state. 

Lecture 2 (Inaugural):
"Governing by Data Infrastructure: Power and Control in the Data-Driven State"
December 17, 2025 (14-16h) (Hasselt University, Campus Hasselt, Aula 1)

Digital infrastructures that collect, process, and circulate data have become central to how societies are governed. From digital identity systems to algorithms that determine welfare allocation and biometrics that manage populations, these infrastructures no longer merely support administrative functions—they actively shape how power is exercised and distributed. This inaugural lecture explores governance by data infrastructure as a defining feature of the data-driven state, where political power is embedded in data, code, platforms, and standards. It maps the key actors—governments, corporations, and citizens—and examines the emerging tensions around control, accountability, and legitimacy as governance becomes increasingly data-centric. By tracing how data infrastructures configure both the possibilities and limits of democratic action, the lecture sets the conceptual foundation for the series’ broader inquiry into citizenship, sovereignty, and inequality in the data-driven state. 

Lecture 3:
"The Datafied Citizen: Agency, Identity, and Belonging in the Datafied State"
February 20, 2026 (14-16h) (Hasselt University, Campus Hasselt, Aula 2)

Regulatory data infrastructures shape not only how states govern but also how people experience citizenship and belonging. This lecture examines how algorithmic systems—such as facial recognition technologies, welfare scoring tools, and digital identity schemes—redefine participation, rights, and trust in public institutions. It explores how data-driven categorization produces new forms of inclusion and exclusion, while also giving rise to subtle and overt acts of resistance—from organized digital rights campaigns to everyday refusals and creative reappropriations of technology. Focusing on how citizens negotiate and reimagine their agency within data regimes, the lecture asks: what does it mean to belong, to be recognized, and to act as a citizen when the infrastructures that mediate identity and participation are designed elsewhere?

Lecture 4:
"Sovereignty Rewired: Public Authority and Corporate Power in the Data-Driven State"
March 30, 2026 (14-16h) (Hasselt University, Campus Hasselt, Aula 2)

As states rely ever more on corporate infrastructures to collect, process, and interpret vast amounts of data, sovereignty itself is being rewired. This lecture examines how governments, corporations, and international bodies co-produce the data-driven state through infrastructures that define what counts as knowledge, compliance, and public value. It traces how technical architectures and governance frameworks—often shaped by corporate interests—quietly redistribute authority and accountability. While standards and interoperability remain key instruments in this process, they are part of a broader struggle over who sets the rules of the digital order. Examples such as the EU Digital Identity Wallet, GAIA-X, and India’s Aadhaar reveal how data infrastructures blur the line between public mandate and private power. The lecture asks: what becomes of democracy when core functions of governance are delegated to infrastructures that are neither fully public nor transparently accountable? 

Lecture 5:
"Inequality by Design? Exclusion and Invisibility in the Data-Driven State"
May 27, 2026 (14-16h) (Hasselt University, Campus Hasselt, Aula 2)

Regulatory data infrastructures promise efficiency and fairness but often reproduce inequality in subtle yet systemic ways. This lecture examines how data-driven governance can entrench exclusion and invisibility by rendering certain individuals and communities underrepresented, misclassified, or entirely absent from datasets. It traces how algorithmic systems transform social difference into technical error and how data poverty—unequal access to, or representation within, data infrastructures—deepens existing hierarchies of privilege and neglect. At the same time, it highlights how civic actors, researchers, and advocacy groups work to expose these hidden asymmetries and imagine fairer data futures. Concluding the series, the lecture reflects on what democratic accountability might look like in a world where visibility itself has become a condition for participation and recognition.