On January 26, the network partners of the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society met for the first time to exchange views on digital education and the digitization of work and academics as well as issues of norm setting, networked urban areas, and technology change. Based on workshops within the framework of this meeting, the Weizenbaum Institute set the agenda for cooperation within its network of partner institutions and scientists.

The Weizenbaum Institute is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research with 50 million euros over five years. The consortium is coordinated by the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) and includes the four Berlin universities – Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, Universität der Künste Berlin – as well as Universität Potsdam and the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS).

Once the hiring process has been completed, roughly 120 researchers will work on interdisciplinary research to address social changes brought about by increasing digitization. In addition, the institute's 28 network partners are important multipliers and transfer partners in research, the economy, civil society, and politics.

The first research findings of the Weizenbaum Institute will be presented in exchange with external researchers at the first Weizenbaum Symposium to be held on May 15 in Berlin. In addition, numerous projects and events are being planned for 2018 in cooperation with partners from science, industry, and civil society.

The institute was named after the computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum, who was born in Berlin in 1923 and passed away in 2008. His entire life’s work was concerned with the socio-critical dialogue between humans and machines.