ECAT was established in 2023 to provide technical and scientific expertise for the enforcement of the Digital Services Act (DSA). Engaging with and learning from the research community is core to our mission, and this year, we are hosting a workshop on 12 November in Seville, bringing together researchers who can help shed light on the societal impact of online platforms and search engines.
At the workshop, we are interested in hearing from researchers who are looking into systemic risks of very large online platforms and search engines (VLOPs and VLOSEs), and particularly systemic risks related to the mental and physical health of minors. Systemic risks in this context refer to Art. 34 of the DSA, which sets out the risks that designated VLOPs and VLOSEs need to assess and mitigate.
Have you conducted research on systemic risks, and would you like to present your findings to an audience of policymakers and fellow researchers? Then we would love to hear from you!
We will give priority to contributions;
- that address risks and/or mitigations related to the mental or physical health of minors, including research that explores methods and tools to audit platform algorithms and interface design to identify such risks;
- where DSA transparency mechanisms have been used. These include: The DSA Transparency Database, Art. 40 data access for researchers and VLOP/VLOSE ad repositories.
You can make a submission through this form. Here you are asked to share information about yourself and your organisation, and to upload an abstract of no more than three pages. Please make your submission by 20 August 2025.
The selection of submissions will be based on factors such as relevance to the workshop topics, clarity, robustness of methodology, maturity of the work, and diversity (in terms of approaches, disciplines and types of VLOPs/VLOSEs). Published work can be submitted, and we welcome submissions from academia, civil society organisations, NGOs, industry and independent researchers.
Authors of accepted submissions will be invited to join the event with a poster which will be displayed in the networking area to be discussed during long coffee breaks. In addition, a selection of authors will be invited to give a short presentation in front of the workshop audience, which will consist of fellow researchers and policymakers. We expect around 80 attendees in total.
The number of accepted contributions will depend on the number and quality of submissions, but we expect to invite authors of maximum 15 submissions.
You will hear back from us by 29 September 2025.
The Commission will cover travel expenses (from within the EU) and accommodation for one author per accepted contribution.