Section: Research Program

Introduction

Our aim is to address both

• challenges in the field of information technology, as well as

• trans-disciplinary issues emerging from the global impact of the digital revolution.

We believe that addressing both directions at the same time is an efficient way to be relevant in each of them.

We focus on intermediation platforms, which are becoming dominant systems in the Web industries. Intermediation platforms are systems which offer services to their users, which are well tuned for their expectation, thanks to the knowledge the platform has accumulated on usage. Search engines, social networks are examples of intermediation platforms. They ensure a gatekeeping function, always in direct contact to their users, providing them with the most relevant information or contact. Their economic model relies on a biface economy, with two types of users, one subsidizing the other. Their impact goes beyond the Web, and they disrupt step by step all sectors of the economy, transportation, Press, education, to name a few.

So far as IT is concerned, we focus on the technologies used for intermediation, which are at the basis of the largest online systems. For the transdisciplinary questions, we focus mostly on the new equilibrium that is resulting from the evolution of power balances due mostly to intermediation platforms.