Scroll Top
Admission Criteria
Admission Criteria

Preamble

Misinformation and disinformation spread happens across national borders and across various digital media platforms. It requires a complex set of scientific skills and methods across disciplines to investigate in depth and at scale.

Cooperation between researchers across the European Union is therefore crucial to increase the level of research on the spread of misinformation and disinformation and the construction and evaluation of responses.

The European Digital Media Observatory promotes collaborative investigations among researchers. For that purpose, it provides access to the TrulyMedia platform, a powerful technological tool for carrying out collaborative investigations developed by ATC and Deutsche Welle.

Access to the platform is free of charge in the context of EDMO. Researchers must satisfy the following criteria to be admitted, as assessed by a committee set up by the Advisory and Executive boards of EDMO.

Admission Criteria

Research institution: Any University or Research institution needs to apply at organizational level and show it is recognized by Eurostat as a research-based university or research institution. When filling out the application form, the Research Institution must name all researchers that apply for access as part of the institution. The research institution shall provide timely notification if researchers are no longer eligible to have access to the platform. We reserve the right to limit the number of participants per institution.
Focus on the European Union: Any research institution willing to become a user of the platform must be established in the EEA and have a demonstrable focus on the EU or EEA member states in all or at least a significant part of its activities. Being a member of the EU National Hubs on disinformation will be considered a sufficient demonstration of compliance with these criteria.
Competence: Applicants, will, for each researcher they request access for, have to demonstrate research on misinformation and disinformation through forwarded copies of papers (at least one and max three) in books, journals, or conference proceedings.
Transparency: Applicants, will for each researcher they request access for, have to disclose and avoid any potential conflict of interest, including work, consulting activities, funding from any company or organization, especially in the social media / digital media sphere. Applicants must disclose influence or control over them by political parties or movements or any relevant economic interest.
Ethics: Applicants must comply with the applicable rules and procedures of research ethics in their area of expertise and specifically with the EU code of conduct for research integrity: https://allea.org/code-of-conduct/. Any violation of these ethical standards and rules may result in termination of the access to the EDMO platform. Institutions that do not act to prevent or sanction any violation of the ethical standards by their researchers may be excluded from access to the platform.

Workflow for assessing applications

Applications will be assessed by the external Assessment Committee of EDMO, composed by experts chosen by the Executive Board and the Advisory Council. After assessing the applications, the Assessment Committee sends its recommendations to the Advisory Council of EDMO that finally decides on the application. In case the application is unsuccessful, the applicant will receive notice indicating the criteria on which it failed and comments. The onboarding process of successful applicants will be administered by Athens Technology Center (ATC).