The Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam is the academic partner in the EU-Horizon Europe Consortium MOBIFREE, which consists of 12 partners in 5 countries. Mobifree strives for the development of a human-centered framework for the co-creation and assessment of a mobile software ecosystem built around ethical values, including operating systems, app stores, user applications, as well as cloud connectivity protocols (MOBIFREE software).
The main objective for the succesful candidate to work on is the development of a values framework for the co-creation and assessment of a human-centered mobile software ecosystem, which respects human rights, complies with EU legislation and is responsive to public values. This values framework will provide the standard MOBIFREE software must comply with, as well as a step-by-step plan developers must consider during the co-creation and testing stages of MOBIFREE software.
The succesful candidate will conduct a literature review that systematically maps all relevant conformity assessment methodologies for digital innovation and software develpoment. The value-sensitive design will be grounded in current and forthcoming legislation (such as the GDPR, the Data Act and the expected AI Act, the European Convention of Human Rights and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights), and align with ethical guidelines and codes of conduct (such as the “Ethics in mobile apps project” that some consortium partners were involved in). Furthermore, we will map existing models for human-centred and ethical software that already exist, taking into account all four components of software ecosystems (operating systems, app stores, apps and cloud connectivity).
The succesful candidate will also look at the variety of available conformity assessment methodologies, focussing on compliance, as well as focussing more constructively on helping innovators reflect on the relevant topics during development of their product.
Based on this combined legal and ethical frameworks and literatures, the candidate will develop an overview of relevant evaluative concepts and their meaning when it comes to ‘values-based’ and ‘ethical’ software and a practical guide to use them in a conformity assessment of software ‘in the making’. The results of this review will be presented and discussed in subgroups, using a round table discussion methodology with all project partners.
The
IViR research team is looking for a postdoctoral researcher (0,8 FTE for 12 months) who is interested in developing such a values framework.