Mirko Tobias Schäfer

Timeline

1. 2002–2008

   Vienna degree and Utrecht PhD

   He studies theater, film and media studies and communication science at the University of Vienna, where he earns a magister (MA) in 2002, and digital culture at Utrecht University. He completes his PhD at Utrecht in 2008.

2. 2011

   Bastard Culture and user participation

   In 2011, he publishes Bastard Culture! How User Participation Transforms Cultural Production with Amsterdam University Press. The book develops the concept of an extended culture industry, which shows how users' appropriation of design is embedded in corporate production.

3. 2012–2016

   Fellowships in Vienna and Utrecht

   In 2012 and 2013, he is a research fellow at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, affiliated with its Artistic Technology Research Lab. A postdoctoral position at the Centre for Humanities at Utrecht University under Rosi Braidotti follows in 2014 and 2015, and in 2016 he is a Mercator Research Fellow at the NRW School of Governance of the University of Duisburg-Essen.

4. 2013

   Founding the Utrecht Data School

   In 2013, he founds the Utrecht Data School with Thomas Boeschoten, then an MA student, as a platform for teaching data analysis and digital methods. The school develops the Data Ethics Decision Aid (DEDA), a tool for evaluating data projects that is widely used across the Dutch public sector.

5. 2015–2017

   The Datafied Society volume

   From 2015, his research turns to critical data studies, investigating how datafication and AI affect citizenship and democracy. In 2017, he and Karin van Es edit The Datafied Society: Studying Culture through Data for Amsterdam University Press.

6. 2021

   The FRAIA algorithm assessment

   In 2021, he co-authors the Impact Assessment Mensenrechten & Algoritmen, the Fundamental Rights and Algorithms Impact Assessment (FRAIA), with Janneke Gerards, Iris Muis and Arthur Vankan for the Dutch government. An interdisciplinary team of scholars at Utrecht University develops the tool.

7. 2022–2025

   Visiting professor in Helsinki

   From 2022 to 2025, he is a visiting professor at the University of Helsinki's Helsinki Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities. DEDA is taken up in Finland during these years, by public institutions such as DVV and Kela and in university teaching.

8. As of October 2026

   Associate professor at Utrecht

   He is an associate professor of AI, Data & Society at Utrecht University's Department for Information & Computing Sciences, where he leads the Applied Data Science program, and Sciences Lead of the Data School. He also serves on the Advisory Committee Analytics at the Netherlands Ministry of Finance. In 2024, he publishes Collaborative Research in the Datafied Society with Karin van Es and Tracey Lauriault, and in 2026 he and van Es argue in an opinion piece in DUB that algorithmic writing machines widen the cracks in academic publishing.