University of Ottawa
Professional Development Institute

Browse Major Initiatives, Centres, Institutes

The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)

The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) is an independent, non-partisan think tank whose peer-reviewed research and trusted analysis influence policy makers to innovate. Its global network of multidisciplinary researchers and strategic partnerships provide policy solutions for the digital era with one goal: to improve people’s lives everywhere. Headquartered in Waterloo, Canada, CIGI has received support from the Government of Canada, the Government of Ontario and founder Jim Balsillie.

The Centre for Disinformation Studies (CDS)

The Centre for Disinformation Studies (CDS) is a nonpartisan research and public outreach wing of the NATO Association of Canada, created in April 2019. The goal of the CDS is to facilitate engagement between academics, government, and the public on the topic of disinformation or ‘fake news’. Although disinformation has long been an aspect of human communication, new technologies and a changing international landscape have pushed the idea of disinformation into public awareness in unprecedented ways. The spread of disinformation in recent years has been facilitated by the proliferation of online social networks and digital information-sharing platforms. These new technologies have eroded public trust in conventional sources of information and have helped spread skepticism towards science, academia, and democratic institutions. [email protected]

Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy - McGill

A research centre dedicated to understanding the relationship between media, technology and democracy. Collaborating with a network of academic, policy, journalistic and community stakeholders, the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy works to understand and address the democratic harms of emerging media technologies and to inform and develop fair and accountable governance systems.

Digital Disinformation and COVID-19

(Page from Ontario Science Centre)

The entire world has been living through a pandemic since early 2020. We know that we all play a part in protecting ourselves and others from COVID-19. Actions we take—mask wearing, hand washing, keeping physical distance from others—help slow the spread of the virus.

Centre for Free Expression

The Centre for Free Expression at Ryerson University is a hub for public education, research and advocacy on free expression and the public’s right to know. Its work is undertaken in collaboration with academic and community-based organizations across Canada and internationally.

The Centre for Free Expression examines the nature, use and effects of disinformation to influence public opinion and personal choice. It fosters public discussion and education regarding information literacy and ways to achieve a more effective regulatory system.

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security

The Cyber Centre is the single unified source of expert advice, guidance, services and support on cyber security for government, critical infrastructure owners and operations, the private sector and the Canadian public. With the Cyber Centre, Canadians have a clear and trusted place to turn to for cyber security issues.

Digital Citizens Initiative

The Digital Citizen Initiative is a multi-component strategy that aims to support democracy and social cohesion in Canada by building citizen resilience against online disinformation and building partnerships to support a healthy information ecosystem.

The Digital Citizen Initiative also supports a community of Canadian researchers that promote a healthy information ecosystem, to help Canadians and the Government understand online disinformation and its impact on Canadian society, and in turn build an evidence-base to identify potential action and develop future policymaking.

NPR launches Disinformation Reporting team

NPR. July 15, 2022

In a note to newsroom staff, Terence Samuel, VP and Executive Editor and Nancy Barnes, SVP of News and Editorial Director announced a list of biographies of staff members working as part of team in disinformation initiative.

Government of Canada working with Civil Society to Strengthen Defences against Online Disinformation

Government of Canada. June 7, 2023.

The Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, announced further details regarding a $5.5 million investment to create the Canadian Digital Media Research Network (CDMRN).

The CDMRN will further strengthen Canadians’ information resilience by researching how quality of information, including disinformation narratives, impacts Canadians’ attitudes and behaviours and by supporting strategies for Canadians’ digital literacy.

The ability to access trustworthy information is vital for public trust and healthy democracies.

OECD DIS/MIS Resource Hub. June 2023.

The OECD DIS/MIS Resource Hub is a peer learning platform for sharing knowledge, data, and analysis of government approaches to tackling mis- and disinformation. Informed by the OECD Expert Group on Governance Responses to Mis- and Disinformation, the Resource Hub gives countries the information and tools they need to respond to global information and foreign interference challenges.

OECD work in this space will also provide a platform for co-operation, where decision makers, along with representatives of civil society, academia and the private sector, will meet to discuss challenges, share good practices and find effective solutions.

Fight disinformation through Reporters Without Borders certification, CBC/Radio-Canada president urges international public broadcasters

CBC Radio-Canada. September 21, 2023.

At the Public Broadcasters International conference (PBI Prague 2023), CBC/Radio-Canada President and CEO Catherine Tait issued a call to action for public broadcasters worldwide. She encouraged them to combat disinformation and enhance trust in public media by obtaining Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI) certification from Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Disinformation Review – October 2023

EU vs Disinfo.

EUvsDisinfo is the flagship project of the European External Action Service’s East StratCom Task Force. It was established in 2015 to better forecast, address, and respond to the Russian Federation’s ongoing disinformation campaigns affecting the European Union, its Member States, and countries in the shared neighbourhood.

EUvsDisinfo’s core objective is to increase public awareness and understanding of the Kremlin’s disinformation operations, and to help citizens in Europe and beyond develop resistance to digital information and media manipulation.

The OECD Dis/Misinformation Resource.

OCED. November 2023.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Expert Group on Governance Responses to Mis- and Disinformation.

In addition to its data collection and analysis activities, the Resource Hub facilitates dialogue and information-sharing via the informal OECD Expert Group on Governance Responses to Mis- and Disinformation. The Expert Group brings together stakeholders from across governments to discuss developments in the field.

NATO’s approach to countering disinformation

NATO. November 8, 2023.

NATO’s approach to countering disinformation is based on two key functions: Understand and Engage. NATO continuously analyses the information environment in order to understand what people are saying, hearing and reading about NATO and key topics related to its work. Based on this understanding, the Alliance engages with audiences through various channels, providing accurate information in its public communications.

UNITED STATES

Wilson Center / Disinformation

Disinformation, the deliberate and often covert spreading of false information, has radically changed the media and security landscapes. The Wilson Center recognizes it is not enough to see the impact of disinformation, but necessary to map out a way to combat disinformation through policy. They take a global approach, informed both by current efforts as well as historical examples, such the Cold War.

Homeland Security advisers say ‘no need’ for disinformation board

Washington Post. July 18, 2022.

Department of Homeland Security advisers urged the agency Monday to scrap the Disinformation Governance Board the Biden administration created this year only to watch it implode amid confusion and partisan quarreling over its role.

Officials said they created the board to fight disinformation-fuelled extremism that might endanger national security, but Republicans and conservative media portrayed it as an Orwellian tool that could infringe on privacy and free speech.

The U.S. Government created a new disinformation office to oversee all the other ones.

Ken Klippenstein. The Intercept. May 5, 2023.

Within the federal government, offices dedicated to fighting foreign disinformation are springing up like daisies, from the Pentagon’s new Influence and Perception Management Office to at least four organizations inside the Department of Homeland Security alone, as well as ones inside the FBI and State Department. To oversee the growing efforts — which arose in response to concerns about the impact of Russian meddling in the 2016 election but have now expanded — the director of national intelligence has created a new office: the Foreign Malign Influence Center, or FMIC.

INTERNATIONAL

Bellingcat

We Are Bellingcat tells the story of how a school dropout created a whole new category of information-gathering and galvanised citizen journalists to solve some of the biggest stories of our time, using just their computer screens. It charts the tools that have been developed for analysing data since the 1990s, from geo-location software that can pinpoint a precise place, to an app that can identify to the half hour the time of day when a photograph was taken. It also digs deep into some of Bellingcat’s most successful investigations – the truth about the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over the Ukraine, the sourcing of weapons in the Syrian Civil War, scoops into journalistic phone hacking, etc.

Psychological Defence Agency - Sweden

The Agency safeguards open and democratic society and free formation of opinion through identifying, analyzing and countering foreign malign information influence, disinformation, and other misleading information directed at Sweden or at Swedish interests.

The main mission of the agency is to lead the coordination and development of Sweden’s psychological defence in collaboration with public authorities and other stakeholders in society. They offer support to government agencies, municipalities, regions, the business sector, and organisations, as well as contribute to strengthening the resilience of our population.

European Commission: Shaping Europe’s digital future

Tacking online disinformation:

The Commission is tackling the spread of online disinformation and misinformation to ensure the protection of European values and democratic systems.

European Digital Media Observatory

EDMO is an independent observatory bringing together fact-checkers and academic researchers with expertise in the field of online disinformation, social media platforms, journalist driven media and media literacy practitioner.

EDMO promotes scientific knowledge on online disinformation, advanced the development of fact-checking services and promotes media literacy programs.

Fact Check Team: What will Biden's Disinformation Governance Board do? May 2, 2022.

Last week, in multiple congressional hearings, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas mentioned the creation of the Disinformation Governance Board. The administration says the board will be countering misinformation related to national security but Republicans fear it’s a way to police Americans’ speech rather than police the Southern border.

DHS says the board will protect Americans’ freedom of speech, civil rights, civil liberties and privacy, and notes that the board will not have any operational authority or capability.

The White House says the board is a continuation of work started by the Trump administration. Press secretary Jen Psaki pointed specifically to stopping human smugglers preying on vulnerable populations who are trying to migrate to the country.

How the Biden administration let right-wing attacks derail its disinformation efforts

A ‘pause’ of the Department of Homeland Security’s newly created board comes after its head, Nina Jankowicz, was the victim of coordinated online attacks as the administration struggled to respond.

She joined DHS to fight disinformation. She says she was halted by... disinformation

Three weeks: That's how long it took for the Department of Homeland Security to go from announcing a board intended to combat disinformation to suspending it.

In those three weeks, both the Disinformation Governance Board and its leader, Nina Jankowicz, came under relentless and sometimes vicious attack from right-wing media and Republican lawmakers.

The Way We Discuss “Disinformation” Is Toxic

A media Ph.D. student studied the literature surrounding terms like misinformation, disinformation, fake news, and propaganda in some detail. Despite the terms’ complexities and heavy connotations, they’ve become buzzwords, often thrown around with little justification. The practice can have serious consequences for those accused of spreading “disinformation” and the larger media environment, which can range from Twitter suspensions to straining the general public’s ability to follow or understand events as they happen.

With the Disinformation Governance Board on pause, it’s time to reconsider the toxic information and discourse environments—and impact such environments have had on public discourse—that these terms have contributed to.

Duke Polarization Lab

They are a team of social scientists, computer scientists, and statisticians who study how technology shapes political tribalism.

Their mission is two-fold. First, they aim to produce the highest quality research about how social media shapes political polarization, drawing upon the latest advances in social psychology, political science, and machine learning.

Second, they aim to translate the insights from our research into tools that people can use to hack political polarization from the bottom up.

Source Criticism and Mediated Disinformation (SCAM) - Oslo research project

The Source Criticism and Mediated Disinformation (SCAM) project’s main objective is to develop principles for and practices of digital source criticism and media and information literacy in relation to emerging technologies, with special emphasis on detection and countering of disinformation. This objective includes the advancement of journalists’ ability to critically scrutinize sources and information in a digital age; journalism educator’s ability to teach digital source criticism; and an improvement of the skills and knowledge needed to enhance media and information literacy in societies at large.

The Disinformation Project

The Disinformation Project produces high-quality research into the seed and spread of misinformation and disinformation in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The Disinformation Project is an independent research group studying misinformation and disinformation in Aotearoa New Zealand. Since February 2020, we have used mixed methods approaches to analyze and review the seed and spread of information disorders – and their impact on the lives of New Zealanders.

The Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy examines how media and emerging technologies shape democracy.

The rapidly shifting digital landscape is reshaping our society, our economy, and our democracy. The Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy (MTD) at McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy, is an interdisciplinary research centre dedicated to understanding and responding to the social, political, and policy challenges posed by our evolving information ecosystem and digital technologies.

NYU’s Centre for Social Media and Politics

Through cutting-edge research, NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics works to understand politics, inform public policy, and strengthen democracy in the digital age.

Over the past two decades, social media and other digital technologies have transformed our society. It’s made it easier than ever to find information, engage with politics, and connect with people across the globe. But it’s also helped fuel misinformation, enable harassment, and foment polarization, presenting urgent challenges to democratic governance.

NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics (CSMaP) is a leading academic research institute studying how this ever-shifting online environment impacts politics, policy, and democracy.

Programme on Democracy and Technology

(Oxford Internet Institute)  

The Programme on Technology and Democracy investigates the use of algorithms, automation, and computational propaganda in public life. This programme of activity is backed by a team of social and information scientists eager to protect democracy and put social data science to work for civic engagement. We are conducting international fieldwork with the political consultants and computer experts who are commissioned to activate or catch information operations. We are building original databases of incidents and accounts involved in such activities, and we use our knowledge to make better tools for detecting and ending interference with democracy. We engage in “real-time” social and information science, actively disseminating our findings to journalists, industry, and foreign policy experts. Our network of experts helps civil society, industry, government, and other independent researchers develop a better understanding of the role of technology in public life.

The Disinformation Project at Simon Fraser University School of Communication

The Disinformation Project at the School of Communication is a SSHRC funded research that examines fake news discourses on Canadian news media and social media. The Project is run by Ahmed Al-Rawi, an Assistant Professor at the School of Communication, who is its Project Director, working collaboratively with a number of graduate students.

There are four objectives behind conducting this study.

• To understand how Canadian journalists define disinformation and fake news and identify the way they deal with this phenomenon.
• To explore fake news coverage and its scope by categorizing Canadian news stories into types using news values theory.
• To find the major topics discussed on Canadian news media and social media posts that reference fake news, disinformation, misinformation, and false news by partly using machine learning methods.
• To provide a clearer conceptualization and operationalization of disinformation in order to expand existing theories and methodologies based on the examination of previous research and the coding of news stories and social media posts.

FactCheck.org

We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.

FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The APPC was established by publisher and philanthropist Walter Annenberg to create a community of scholars within the University of Pennsylvania that would address public policy issues at the local, state and federal levels.

A vibrant home for disinformation activists and experts.

EU DisinfoLab is an independent non-profit organization focused on tackling sophisticated disinformation campaigns targeting the EU, its member states, core institutions, and core values.

Activities include: Research, Knowledge Sharing, Advocacy and Outreach.

The Centre for Information, Technology, and Public Life

The Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill research the intersection of politics and digital technology, studying technologies in the context of the people who design, use, and govern them. In the rapidly growing field of research on the role of technology in our society, CITAP’s work is distinctive, uniting multiple fields of study and methodological approaches with a shared Southern, public-institutional view with strong shared research values.

Global Disinformation Index: We Exist to Disrupt Online Information

Our Mission:
Our mission is to catalyze change. We aim to disrupt the business model of disinformation, breaking the perverse incentives that exist to create and disseminate disinformation online.

What We Do:
GDI provides independent, neutral and transparent data and intelligence to advise policymakers and business leaders about how to combat disinformation and its creators.

EU Disinformation Lab 2022 – Annual Conference Synopsis of Annual Meeting

EU Disinfo Lab. October 2022.

Over two days, the conference brought together renowned experts from diverse backgrounds, digging into pressing issues in the disinformation space, from developments in the field of open-source investigations, and in the policy domain (the Digital Services Act), through the framework of accountability.

Attendees joined leading experts and stakeholders from across the disinformation world for a mix of panel sessions, interviews, and masterclasses.

Together we must Align Technology with Humanity’s Best Interests

Centre for Humane Technology.

Our mission is to shift technology towards a more humane future that supports our well-being, democratic functioning, and shared information environment.

EMIF awards €5.7M for projects fighting disinformation in 2022

European university Institute. November 3, 2022.

In its first year of activity, the European Media and Information Fund (EMIF) has distributed €5,751,721 in grants supporting 33 projects aimed at countering disinformation across the continent. The fund launched its first call for proposals in November 2021 to support fact-checking activities in Europe. This first initiative was followed by three further calls across three priority areas: “Multidisciplinary Investigations on Disinformation in Europe,” “Supporting Research into Media, Disinformation and Information Literacy Across Europe,” and “Media and Information Literacy for Citizens Empowerment.” Moreover, right after the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army, EMIF issued a special call to encourage fact-checking projects addressing conflict-related disinformation.

Foundation Descartes.

The Fondation Descartes is an interdisciplinary, non-partisan research institute dedicated to the challenges related to information and the public debate in the age of the Internet and social networks. The Fondation Descartes has an internal team that develops and conducts research aimed at better understanding the processes by which information is produced, disseminated, and received. The reflections and studies carried out within the Fondation Descartes are intended to nourish the reflections on the conditions for the production of sincere information (i.e. information that is accurate, complete and devoid of any intent to distort the understanding of the facts reported), which is an essential pillar of a healthy democracy. The Fondation Descartes also makes available to the public scientific, literary and bibliographical resources on disinformation, its history, and its contemporary challenges, as well as syntheses of research papers and thematic overviews regarding the core aspects of contemporary information dynamics.

Climate Security Association of Canada

CSAC's purpose is to bring together, coordinate, and enhance the capacities of scholars, policymakers, practitioners, media professionals, and others with a professional interest in generating, disseminating, and applying knowledge related to climate change and security. We aim to foster independent and responsible scholarly inquiry among our members and contribute to informed and guided climate security policy-making. CSAC also strives to improve the teaching and dissemination of ideas, concepts, methods, and information about climate security. To fulfill these objectives, the Association actively seeks cooperative relationships with relevant organizations and supports graduate students through meetings and scholarship opportunities.