RAISE is a Nordic research collaboration that is building a long-term monitoring hub to map, evaluate and make visible the societal impacts of AI systems used in public administration across the Nordic region.
2026
RAISE (Monitoring Hub for Mapping and Surveying Responsible Artificial Intelligence and Societal Engagement in the Nordic Region) is a three-year project funded by NordForsk under the Nordic-Baltic initiative on responsible use of Artificial Intelligence. The project is led by LUT University in Finland, with the University of Gothenburg, the University of Bergen, the University of Iceland and BI Norwegian Business School as partners. RAISE develops a normative framework based on digital dignity, meaning fair representation, recognition and participatory agency, combined with responsiveness to public needs. It uses this framework to assess how AI systems in public administration affect citizens, civil servants and institutional legitimacy. The project’s main output is a Nordic AI Monitoring Hub, which will offer an open-access database of mapped AI systems in public services, an interactive dashboard of cross-country citizen and expert surveys, and a repository of policy briefs and governance toolkits for public authorities, civil society and the wider public. SCDI leads the work on defining digital dignity and contributes expertise on AI in knowledge-intensive and discretionary public sector work.
Responsible AI, public administration, digital dignity, AI governance, algorithmic accountability, institutional legitimacy, public trust
AI is increasingly used across Nordic public administration to improve efficiency, speed and decision-making. Current AI governance, however, focuses largely on individual rights such as transparency and privacy. It often overlooks broader structural risks, including exclusion, bias, weakened accountability and eroding institutional legitimacy. AI tools also shape discretionary decisions in ways that are hard to see and hard to contest, even when a human formally makes the final decision. There is currently no systematic, comparative way to track these effects across the region, or to capture how citizens and experts perceive them.
The project uses a mixed-methods design organized in three phases. 1. Conceptual groundwork. The team develops the digital dignity framework and a typology that classifies AI systems by their responsiveness to public needs and their protection of digital dignity. In parallel, it maps AI use in welfare, taxation, justice and other policy areas through interviews with public officials. 2. Empirical investigation. Citizen deliberation polls, expert roundtables and co-design sessions with public administrators and civil society examine how AI is perceived and how it affects discretionary decision-making. 3. Infrastructure. The monitoring hub is built and launched. It combines a semi-panel public opinion survey with an expert panel of about 75 members, and will be updated regularly to support longitudinal tracking. An External Evaluation Board with academic and civil society members from all participating countries provides independent oversight.
Planned outcomes include: • a digital dignity framework and typology of AI systems in public administration, • cross-country institutional maps of AI implementation, • baseline citizen and expert survey datasets published under FAIR principles, • policy toolkits and an annual policy brief series, and • the launch of the first wave of the Nordic AI Monitoring Hub.
RAISE aims to establish a shared, regionally anchored infrastructure for comparative learning, public accountability and early detection of systemic AI risks in Nordic public services. By bringing citizen and expert perspectives into ongoing feedback with policymakers, the hub is designed to go beyond observation and support participatory governance and dignity-centred AI practice. It also builds regional research capacity through doctoral training and interdisciplinary collaboration across information systems, public administration, law and the social sciences.
LUT University (lead), University of Bergen, University of Iceland, BI Norwegian Business School. Engagement is planned with civil society organisations and public authorities, including AlgorithmWatch, Access Now, the Finnish Tax Administration (Vero), Digital Iceland and the Danish ADD project.
Contact our team to learn more or explore collaboration opportunities.
