BI leads two doctoral networks on AI

Across the two Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Networks, 30 doctoral candidates will be trained through collaborations linking universities, public authorities, international organisations and industry partners.

For BI, the projects cover two connected questions: how AI is changing work inside organisations, and how public institutions and regulators can respond when technological change moves faster than established rules and routines.

Doctoral candidates investigating AI at work

In EMANAIRE, Empowering Human Agency in AI-Augmented Futures of Work, BI serves as coordinator of a network worth around €4.75 million. The project will train 15 doctoral candidates located across different participating universities, and examine how generative and agentic AI affect leadership, workflow design, collaboration, and longer-term questions of skills and careers.

Research within EMANAIRE addresses that AI at work is not only a question of efficiency or automation an institutional question about authority, accountability, and discretion. When AI systems begin to shape decisions and organizational routines, we must consider who remains responsible and how judgment is exercised. It is vital to determine how human agency and dignity are safeguarded. Furthermore, we need to understand the conditions under which AI strengthens, rather than erodes, a person's capacity to learn and advance.

To support this research, BI will host three doctoral candidates in Oslo. The institution will also lead the project’s overall management and training programme.

“A coordinator role in a Marie Skłodowska-Curie network is difficult to secure. It reflects the strength of BI’s research environment and gives our doctoral programme a substantial lift through international recruitment, mobility and long-term collaboration. It also places BI in the middle of a European research effort on how AI is changing work and how that change should be studied.” says Ingunn Myrtveit, Provost for Research and Societal Impact at BI.

Research across eight European countries

The EMANAIRE consortium brings together BI, Technische Universität München, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Stockholm School of Economics, Aarhus University, the University of Ljubljana, the University of Zurich, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Hanken School of Economics.

The doctoral fellows will conduct research across eight European countries and collaborate with practice organisations across public, private and international sectors. This connection will strengthen the practical implications and societal impact of the projects.

 “EMANAIRE is not built around the assumption that AI will simply replace people. The harder and more important question is how organisations distribute responsibility, expertise and room for judgement when AI becomes part of everyday work. We want to understand when AI helps people do better work, and when it narrows autonomy, weakens professional judgement or changes careers in ways organisations are not prepared for,” says Christian Fieseler, Professor at BI and project lead for the network.

Investigating institutional governance of transformative technologies

BI is also a beneficiary in REGULAIRE, Regulatory Learning for the Governance of Transformative Technologies, which will train another 15 doctoral candidates. That network examines how institutions learn to govern AI and other emerging technologies when change outpaces regulatory routines. Its focus is on regulatory learning: how evidence moves between research and policy, how supervisory authorities build capacity, how sandboxes and other forms of experimentation can be used responsibly, and how feedback from practice can improve public oversight.

Regulaire is a consortium of University of St. Gallen, University of Amsterdam, Maastricht University, Lund University, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, the University of Copenhagen and Politecnico di Milano, alongside regulatory and international organisations working on digital governance, media, data protection and AI policy. It is coordinated by Technical University of Munich.

The two networks will widen BIs role in European research on technology governance. Between them, the projects expand BI’s doctoral training, European partnerships and longer-term collaboration across research, policy and practice.