After the upcoming elections, the Dutch House of Representatives will have a standing Committee for Digital Affairs. Member of Parliament Harry van der Molen was among those who called for this in a now adopted motion. Earlier, a temporary committee for the digital future (TCDT: Tijdelijke Commissie Digitale Toekomst) published its final report entitled Update vereist – naar meer parlementaire grip op digitalisering  (Update required – towards greater parliamentary grip on digitalisation), in which it called for the establishment of a standing Committee for Digital Affairs, as of the next term of office for Dutch government.

In two dialogue sessions, a number of academics associated with the VSNU Digital Society programme provided input to the temporary committee at an earlier stage. These sessions included data scientists as well as colleagues from the social sciences and the humanities, in order to emphasise the importance of digitalisation to society and parliament. The academics called for the temporary committee to be restructured into a standing committee, which has now been done.

Programme coordinator Sally Wyatt: 'We are pleased with this development. It is very important that the insights from various disciplines are entertained in the political debate on a phenomenon as complex as digitalisation. We look forward to further cooperation with the committee.'

The Digital Society research programme aims to contribute to the public and social discourse on digitalisation and its impact on society. Together, the universities wish to contribute to the objective of positioning the Netherlands as a pioneer in human-centred information technology. Under the flag of Parlement & Wetenschap (Parliament & Science), a link was laid between the research committee and the VSNU programme.

• Fact sheet of Prof. Liesbet van Zoonen: De invloed van digitalisering op publieke waarden – en vice versa (The influence of digitalisation on public values and vice versa)
• Fact sheet of Esther Smit and Prof. Maarten de Rijke: Welke technologische en digitaliseringsontwikkelingen komen op ons af? (Which technological and digitalisation developments are in the offing?)