This series brings together scholars from law, management, public administration, computer science, and adjacent fields to examine how the automation of state authority affects fundamental aspects of the human experience: being recognised as individuals rather than data points, participating meaningfully in decisions that affect us, protecting those made vulnerable by algorithmic bias, and maintaining space for resistance and appeal. Key themes include:

1. Human dignity and autonomy: Exploring how automated state interactions preserve or erode individual dignity and self-determination
2. Care, empathy, and human judgement: Examining what happens to discretion, empathy, and individualised care in optimisation-driven environments
3. Transparency and explanation: Analysing requirements for transparency and comprehensible reasoning in automated administrative decisions
4. Human oversight and involvement: Investigating models for meaningful human participation in automated decision-making processes
5. Accountability and oversight: Examining how courts, administrative bodies, and oversight mechanisms adapt to provide accountability when decisions are made through algorithmic systems
6. Access to justice and vulnerability: Addressing pathways for meaningful access to justice and legal remedy in algorithmic governance, with particular attention to how automated systems can amplify existing inequalities and create new forms of vulnerability among different groups
7. Constitutional and legal adaptation: Examining how legal frameworks, rights, and administrative law doctrines evolve to address algorithmic governance

By attending to the lived realities of algorithmic governance from multiple perspectives – those of legal subjects, organisational actors, and institutional designers – we aim to foster a more nuanced understanding of the automation of public life. In doing so, we ask not only what machines can do for the state, but what kind of state we are becoming through machines, and what kinds of humans we are allowed to be within it.

Location: Room A0.51, Kammerlingh Onnes Gebouw (KOG), Steenschuur 25, Leiden.
Online: Online participants will have the opportunity to listen, but not actively contribute.
Duration: Each session runs for 75 minutes in total, including the lecture and a Q&A session. After each lecture, we will host a reception in the adjacent room.

1. Christine Moser (VU Amsterdam), 20 November 2025, 11.15-12.30. For more information and registration see here.
2. Catholijn Jonker (TU Delft), 9 January 2026, 11.30-12.45 (postponed - new date TBA)
3. Sofia Ranchordas (Tilburg University/Luiss Guido Carli), 29 January 2026, 15.30-16.45
4. Aya Rizk (Linköping University), 19 February 2026, 15.30-16.45
5. Mengchen Dong (Max Planck Institute for Human Development), 19 March 2026, 15.30-16.45
6. Ida Koivisto (University of Helsinki), 9 April 2026, 15.30-16.45
7. Natali Helberger (University of Amsterdam), 26 May 2026, 15.30-16.45

The lecture series will be accompanied by a Blog Post Symposium on The Digital Constitutionalist, which will later be developed into a DigiBook (an example of a previous DigiBook). The Blog Post Symposium aims to foster conversation around the lecture series’ themes and we welcome contributions from attendees of the lecture series or others with an interest in the topic. We particularly encourage early-career scholars to submit contributions.

Students enrolled in a postgraduate programme at Leiden University have a unique opportunity to engage with the full lecture series. If you attend all sessions (you are allowed to miss one) and submit a reflection paper of approximately 600-1200 words on any lecture you attended, you can earn a certificate of attendance. The best reflections may be selected for inclusion in the accompanying Blog Post Symposium on The Digital Constitutionalist. If you are interested in this option, please use the designated registration button below. 

Dr Melanie Fink is an Assistant Professor at the Europa Institute, Leiden University. Her research explores the intersection of digital public administration and EU law from an individual rights perspective. Her expertise spans administrative justice in the automated state, accountability and access to justice, especially in EU border management, and the interplay between EU constitutional law and the regulation of digital technologies. With a three-year NWO-Veni grant (2025-2028), Melanie is currently working on the role of explanation rights and ‘human-in-the-loop’ mechanisms to safeguard human dignity when public authorities deploy AI systems.

Dr Daria Morozova is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Business Studies, Leiden University. Her research explores what it means to be human at work, examining how people perceive their capacities in the artificially intelligent world, what makes people successful in changing environments, and how the ways we speak about the world shape our experiences. Her work seeks to enable individuals and organisations to thrive creatively and socially as advanced technologies like AI rapidly proliferate.