GOVTRUST combines expertise from four participating research groups:
- Antwerp Centre of Evolutionary Demography (Faculty of Business and Economics)
- Government & Law (Faculty of Law)
- Politics & Public Governance (Faculty of Social Sciences)
- Media, ICT and interpersonal relations in Organisations and Society (Faculty of Social Sciences)
Antwerp Centre of Evolutionary Demography (Faculty of Business and Economics)
The Antwerp Centre of Evolutionary Demography (ACED) is an international Centre of Excellence of the Department of Management. It is ACED’s unequivocal mission to develop itself into a world-class, truly interdisciplinary, fundamental research institute focused on the following 4 major research topics:
- Top Management Team Behavior
- Corporate Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Interfirm Networks
- Organizational demography and new form emergence
- Neuro-Economics
What the 4 research themes have in common is an emphasis on a multi-disciplinary, multi-level and multi-method approach. First, insights from different economic and social science disciplines will be combined and integrated, notably economics, psychology, sociology and political science. Second, the multi-level perspective will be explored systematically, implying that interactions across different levels of analysis will be investigated. Third, we emphasize longitudinal and a quantitative approach to understand the dynamics of the phenomena we are interested in (e.g. count data models, event history analysis, panel data analysis).
Government & Law (Faculty of Law)
Recent developments of governance and multi-level government have impacted on public law. Research group Government & Law examines the fundamental questions raised by the exercise of authority at lower and higher levels of governance and by non-state actors: how do public agents function in this new environment, and how should we deal with questions of legitimacy and accountability, rule of law, and respect for fundamental rights derived from there?
Inasmuch as national constitutions are insufficient to secure these principles, the research group inquires at the normative level how ideas of justice, rights and democracy need to be rethought in a multi-level, multi-actor context and through what form public law would be suitable in this institutional context to realise these values.
This programme covers as units of analysis public institutions at the local, regional, federal, European and international level, as well as non-state actors in so far as they take on a prominent role in the public sector. It analyses the legal framework for the functioning of public institutions and its relations with citizens and the industry.
To this end, it aims at a multi-dimensional approach, based on intra- and interdisciplinary research next to doctrinal legal approaches, and supported by a broader foundational framework of legal theory.
Politics & Public Governance (Faculty of Social Sciences)
Research group Politics & Public Governance (PPG) is one of the four research groups from the Department of Political Sciences of the UAntwerp (Faculty of Social Sciences). Its research is focused on three axes:
- Diversity and equality in politics & public governance
- Knowledge and information in and through politics & public governance
- Politics & public governance in a European multi-layered and multi-actor context
The research group studies political and public governance institutions, their evolution and how institutional mechanisms shape actors’ scope of action, positions, decisions and behaviour. Hereto, the group combines expertise from political science, public administration, policy studies as well as public law.
Media, ICT and interpersonal relations in Organisations and Society (Faculty of Social Sciences)
Media, ICT and interpersonal relations in Organisations and Society (MIOS) is a research group within the Department of Communication Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences.
Since 2003 our team is dedicated to the study of individuals’ uses of media and ICT, as well as interpersonal relations within organisations and the broader society, to pursue evidence based communication strategies and policy.
The research activities of MIOS can be linked to two communication levels:
The use of digital media by individuals, and the associated risks and opportunities: This level focuses on research into the use of internet, mobile phones and games by children, young people and adults.
The strategic use of digital media by organizations (companies, social-profit organizations, governments): At this level, research is conducted in areas such as (online) marketing and health communication.
Studies center on the following key topics:
- Cyberbullying
- Online privacy
- Online advertising
- Prevention & Intervention