News

Over the summer, PLATFORM WARS' Martine Jaarsma and Fer Avar have presented their ongoing work at conferences and workshops of the International Studies Association.

On 16 and 17 June, Marijn Hoijtink and Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud hosted a paper workshop in Antwerp to discuss drafts for the special issue on 'AI, Militarism, and Security'. Over the course of 1,5 intensive days, participants discussed 13 draft articles and numerous conceptual and empirical ideas.

PLATFORM WARS’ Marijn Hoijtink is offering a fully funded PhD position at the University of Antwerp, in collaboration with Professor Jorg Kustermans from the International Politics Research Group at the University of Antwerp.

On April 30th the PLATFORM WARS team welcomed dr. Daniel Møller Ølgaard from the Royal Danish Defence College to Antwerp, for a PhD workshop and a guest lecture for the master's program International Relations and Diplomacy.

This month, PLATFORM WARS' Marijn Hoijtink contributed to two pieces in the Belgian press that speak to the question of how military AI is being developed, justified, and deployed.

Recent media coverage and research from the PLATFORM WARS project show that AI is rapidly becoming embedded in military infrastructures, revealing how private tech companies are increasingly entangled in geopolitical power dynamics and raising fundamental questions about governance, autonomy, and the role of digital platforms in contemporary warfare.

PLATFORM WARS is pleased to welcome three new researchers with a diverse range of empirical interests, theoretical perspectives and geographical expertise.

In the last week of January, the Platform Wars project co-hosted a workshop on geopolitical tech rivalries, in collaboration with the ReGlobe project at VU Amsterdam and the CODE project at Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

At this year's Responsible AI in the Military Domain Summit (ReAIM) in A Coruña, Spain, members of the PLATFORM WARS team engaged in lively debates with policy makers, industry representatives, civil society and other researchers.

PLATFORM WARS’ Marijn Hoijtink will be editing a Themed Issue on AI, Militarism and Security for the ‘Cambridge Forum on AI - Culture and Society’ together with Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud from the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.

PLATFORM WARS’ Jasper van der Kist was invited by the 'Refugee Law and Refugee Lives' podcast at the University of Bergen to discuss his ethnographic research on the production and utilization of Country of Origin Information in European asylum processes.

Members of the PLATFORM WARS team took part in the 18th Pan-European Conference on International Relations (EISA) this past August in Bologna to present their work and exchange ideas with colleagues from all over the world.

In November 2025, members of the PLATFORM WARS team presented their ongoing work at various events and international conferences.

For two articles on the growing threat posed by new military technologies and how they shape contemporary war fighting in Ukraine, Gaza and beyond, PLATFORM WARS' Marijn Hoijtink spoke to the Belgian newspaper Knack.

Over the summer, members of the PLATFORM WARS project have spoken to various news outlets about a range of topics, including Palantir's latest deal with the US Army and the increasing amount of military-related research at Flemish universities.

On 11 June 2025, the PLATFORM WARS project hosted a workshop with Roberto Gonzalez, Professor of Anthropology at San José State University.

In April, the PLATFORM WARS project was visited by Anna Nadibaidze, postdoctoral researcher at the Center for War Studies of the University of Southern Denmark (SDU).

In light of the increasing automation and platformization of warfare and military decision-making, especially in the context of Ukraine and Gaza, the expertise of PLATFORM WARS and RAW researchers was high in demand last year, resulting in a series of interviews in newspapers, radio stations and podcasts.

In their new FWO research project ‘Tracing the Realities of Algorithmic Warfare: From Innovation to Deployment and its Impact on Civilian Harm’, PLATFORM WARS’ Marijn Hoijtink and RAW’s Lauren Gould offer a 4-year, fully funded PhD position in International Relations and Conflict Studies.

In the last week of January, the PLATFORM WARS project organized an interdisciplinary workshop focusing on different conceptualizations of ‘the platform’ and what they could add to the analysis of contemporary warfare.

In interviews with news outlets De Morgen, Radio1 and Trouw, Marijn Hoijtink and Jessica Dorsey reflect on Google’s departure from its commitment not to develop technology for weapon systems.

The project welcomes three new PhD researchers who will conduct research on platform corporations' role in contemporary warfare from a variety of theoretical, conceptual and empirical perspectives.

PLATFORM WARS’ Principal Investigator Marijn Hoijtink and her colleague Lauren Gould from the Realities of Algorithmic Warfare (RAW) program have been awarded a Research Project grant by the FWO to trace and investigate the Realities of Algorithmic Warfare – From Innovation to Deployment and its Impact on Civilian Harm.