Global Research Technology Lab (GRTL)

A central pillar of the Lab’s work is participatory and community-centered AI research, particularly from a Majority World lens encompassing Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Rather than treating communities as passive recipients of technology, GRTL advances the principle of “participation as justice,” emphasizing that people most affected by technological systems should play a meaningful role in shaping their design, governance, and evaluation. This shift in decision-making power ensures that AI systems and datasets reflect local contexts and lived realities. 

By bridging the gap between local experts, civil society, and technologists, GRTL builds technology ecosystems that are safe, equitable, and accountable. Our mission is to move beyond „one-size-fits-all“ solutions. This approach reflects a broader movement within participatory AI research that seeks to prioritize input from those most likely to be affected by AI systems and to embed their perspectives into the design and governance of technology.

GRTL is committed to building an international alliance of like-minded research labs and scholars working at the intersection of participatory AI, governance, and social justice. Bringing together an interdisciplinary community across Europe and the United States, the Lab convenes researchers from fields including anthropology, political science, sociology, data science, and communication to collaboratively identify emerging research questions, refine ongoing work, and advance shared methodological approaches. This alliance extends beyond academia to engage community organizations, human rights practitioners, and policymakers, ensuring that research remains grounded in real-world needs and responsive to those most affected by technological systems. 

Via this alliance, GRTL hopes to contribute towards the field of participatory AI research and help with a collectively imagining wherein we produce scientific evidence about the impact of participatory AI research in aid of the common good. This includes the issue of epistemic rights and foregrounding the lived experience and ways of knowing of Indigenous peoples. We aim to do this by fostering sustained collaboration, generating rigorous and policy-relevant evidence, and translating research into practice through joint projects, convenings, and engagement with public and philanthropic stakeholders.

Prof. Melissa Villa Nicholas, associate professor at UCLA’s Department of Information Studies, and her Lab. 

Prof. Beate Ochsner, professor of Media Sciences at the University of Konstanz. She is co-Director of their Centre for Data | Human | Society.