In 2016, the Hans-Bredow-Institut established a new form of promoting young researchers: the "Postdoc-Kolleg". The Kolleg combines (temporary) positions, which are financed by the Institute, and scholarships along with third-party-funded projects of different duration. With its theme-based focus, it extends the promotion of young researchers that continues to take place in all areas of the Institute. In addition to the research programmes, the Kolleg aims to promote innovation and provide an impetus for future projects.
For the first phase, the Institute agreed on the topic “Algorithmed Public Spheres” (APS), which is new and innovative, but, at the same time, matches the existing areas of expertise and research programmes of the Institute. The focus lies on the increasing importance of algorithms for the prioritisation, classification, association and filtering of media content and digital communication, e.g. in search engines (Google), recommendation systems (Amazon) and when selecting news and posts (Facebook, Twitter). In this Kolleg, international researchers coming from different disciplines work together on implications for communication and the public sphere that are connected to algorithmic data processing on digital platforms.
The Postdoc-Kolleg is coordinated by Dr. Cornelius Puschmann (until September 2019; provisionally at the moment Dr. Jan-Hinrik Schmidt). The Kolleg welcomed its first two fellows in December 2016: Nick Diakopoulos, Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, and Katharina Kinder-Kurlanda, GESIS. Two public events and an internal workshop were organised with Nick Diakopoulos during his stay. A second phase of promoting young researchers started in 2017. Atilla-Filipe Cevik supported the Kolleg as a junior fellow with a project on news consumption on online platforms. Als fellows came Dr. Cédric Courtois, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium; Dr. Judith Möller, Amsterdam School of Communication Research, Netherlands and Dr. Jing Zeng, Australia. In 2018 Juhi Kulshrestha, Dr. Felix Victor Münch and Dr. Mariëlle Wijermars came to the Institute, followed by Dr. Cristiano Ferri from Brazil, Dr. Jonathon Hutchinson from Sydney, Australia, Prof. Arjen van Dalen from Denmark and Maris Männiste PhD student, University of Tartu, Finland. In the last round of funding (2019-2020), Dr. Clara Iglesias Keller, Rio de Janeiro State University, and Prof. Anu Masso from Tallin University of Technology were selected
