Call for support to include a PhD thesis in the PEPR eNSEMBLE programme (2026 session)

3 priority themes:

1. Distributed and secure infrastructure for long-term collaboration
2. Interoperability for long-term collaboration
3. Conceptual frameworks for long-term collaboration

Theme 1: Distributed and secure infrastructure for long-term collaboration

Description:  To handle long-term collaborative practices, new algorithms and infrastructure are needed to manage shared and replicated data. Indeed, several modes of collaboration have to be supported: connected (user modifications are immediately shared and visible to the other users), disconnected (users are not connected to the network; their modifications will be transmitted to the other users at the reconnection), ad-hoc (subgroups of users can work together and synchronize at a later time with other members of the group) and inter-organisational (groups of users from different organizations work and share data during a collaborative activity). A challenging issue is how to balance collaboration with security of shared objects. Interaction is aimed at making shared objects available to all who need them, whereas security seeks to ensure this availability only to users with proper authorisation. We need also to ensure that the infrastructure that supports data sharing and collaboration is resilient and trustworthy. We need an easy to use security mechanism adapted for distributed collaborative systems.

Keywords: distributed infrastructure, distributed algorithms, replication, collaboration modes, synchronous collaboration, asynchronous collaboration, inter-organisational collaboration, security

Theme 2: Interoperability for long-term collaboration

Description:  The current approach to digital services, based on information silos and walled gardens, creates unneeded barriers to fluid forms of collaboration. Users need to be able to create their own collaborative environment. They need also to be able to change these environments to adapt them to new requirements, partners, or tools. This requires embracing interoperability at every level of the socio-technical stack. It is also key to enabling accessibility by diverse collectives of users. We launch a call for PhD proposals that aim to develop an interoperability framework that can be used as the basis for collaborative services integration. This includes open and extensible formats and ontological approaches such that different applications could function on the same shared objects as well as software models and infrastructures capable of fostering collaboration among heterogeneous actors and artifacts.

Keywords: interoperability, heterogeneous collaboration, collaborative service integration, ontologies

Theme 3: Conceptual frameworks for long-term collaboration

Description: As collaborative activities spread across multiple software and devices, breakdowns in the way  information is shared, and group coordinated become increasingly frequent and problematic. New conceptual frameworks are needed to account for the organizational evolutions (e.g. people  increasingly collaborating across teams and organizations), the constant evolution of software (e.g.  constant updates, or switch from one platform to another), and emerging collaborative practices. We aim at offering new conceptual and analysis tools for articulating social needs and technology  capabilities in a sociotechnical perspective, therefore developing new practices for software engineering and design. These frameworks will account for the asymmetries of roles, goals and preferences when collaborating on a shared artifact, and for the recording and browsing of  collaborative interaction histories. Such conceptual frameworks for long-term collaboration will allow an appropriate modelling of coordination mechanisms to ensure the appropriation of technology, which is challenged by the complexity of the ecologies of artifacts at stake. The goal is to produce theoretical constructs for analysis, modelling and design that match new forms of long-term collaboration (as identified in particular by current PhD work conducted in PILOT) with technology capabilities (in particular those offered by PILOT through the PhDs). 

Keywords: conceptual frameworks, coordination

MATCHING projects are devoted to the collaboration between humans when mediated by one or several intelligent (and potentially autonomous) agents. Ideally, a MATCHING project should aim to involve visible and explicit intelligent agents (no seamless nor invisible action of AI within the system), use cases and scenarios with at least two collaborating subjects, an ecological field evaluation and a multidisciplinary approach.

Priorities of MATCHING project for 2026 will focus on the following topics and domains:

We welcome proposals in Human-Computer Interaction, Design or Ergonomics. We will give priority to applications that study the effect of technical or design interventions on user behaviour within the scope of CONGRATS’ research topics (see scientific document).

That said, we remain open to topics exploring areas or projects not yet covered by PC4 (areas already well covered include Wikipedia, free software and debate platforms). Areas to explore include cooperation in the field of video games and OpenStreetMap.

For this call, PC5 will give priority to projects under Theme 3, on the environmental challenges of digital collaboration, provided that applications are of equal academic merit.

Theme 1: Methods and tools for measuring impact of collaboration

We must establish a framework for measuring the impact of collaborative technology on human users, including individuals and groups as well as human-algorithm (“intelligent agent”) relationships. Methods must be deployable for diverse user populations, over multiple time scales, and assess different types of impact, including the risk and likelihood of harm to human users. Key measurement dimensions include determining positive, neutral or negative impact with respect to:

– Time scale: immediate, intermediate and long term;

– Population: individual, group or corporate;

– Risk: balance likelihood of harm and size of negative impacts; and

– Measures: qualitative or quantitative, in context or in general.

Keywords: impact, measurement, psychological and sociological factors

Theme 2: Legal, ethical and philosophical aspects of collaboration

Collaboration technologies raise important ethical issues, particularly with respect to technological control, citizen’s liberty and decisional autonomy, digital democracy, governance of and by digital technologies, and the control of work or ordinary activities. This echoes the question of the legal framework organizing privacy, data protection, interoperability, security, and AI responsibilities, but also more classical questions such as the property of the collective intellectual productions especially in light of the EU member States of Directive 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market. Finally, philosophical debates and reflections posed by the Humanities explore how far humans can be helped, assisted, facilitated in their tasks and activities, while remaining “human”. In particular, it is important to identify how human’s reflexivity, critical thinking and its own ethical deliberation can be promoted to increase their agency during their interaction with numerical tools.

Key challenges include identifying the ethical responsibilities in human-machine collaboration, and clarifying legal issues related to the impact of both collaborative and intelligent systems on individuals and society. Finally, it is crucial to address regulatory concerns related to privacy, copyrights, agency and interoperability.

Keywords: ethics, digital law, philosophy, epistemology, digital anthropology, anthropology of new technologies

Theme 3: Environmental aspects of collaborative technology development

Echoing in every social and ideological space, environmental issues have become central in the agenda of information and communication technology sciences, as well as in computer science and robotics. The proliferation of technological devices aiming at facilitating collaboration does not only raise questions about the behavior and representation systems of users and usage models: the ecological impact (carbon footprint, exploitation of rare minerals, energy and material pollution, etc.) is also increasingly considered. Research on these dimensions of the current digitalisation of modern societies is urgent and crucial, and must explore the complexity of the configurations and issues that the environmental crisis entails in the field of digital technologies, which moreover maintain an ambivalent relationship with ecology: as sources of pollution on the one hand, digital and collaborative technologies carry and provide IT solutions on the other. The aim of this Ph.D. thesis research is therefore to carry out a reflection, based on solid empirical work and a reliable and robust methodology, on the environmental impacts of digital technologies, considered in a general way (on the background of the movement of digitalisation of human societies) but in a specific approach (with a particular disciplinary or methodological angle) which crosses the problems of the SHS, the STS and the environmental sciences.

Keywords: ecological crisis, collaborative agents, societal impact, socio-cultural approaches