Royal Holloway is proud to announce that Dr Andreu Casas, from the Department of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy has been awarded a prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship.
The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Fellowship, which will provide more than £1.8million in funding over the next four years, will support groundbreaking research at the University into monitoring social media platforms’ unprecedented power to moderate and curate political speech.
The award will facilitate the creation of Royal Holloway’s London Social Media Observatory, a new multidisciplinary research initiative set to launch on December 1, 2025.
The Observatory will adopt a novel research approach to evaluate the effects of how social media platforms moderate and curate political content. It will commit to accelerating feedback loops and impactful action among academic communities, industry, society and the government.
Dr Casas and his team will develop strong computational social science resources and best practices to identify patterns of content curation and moderation within and across major social media platforms, and better understand how political speech is moderated online.
The Observatory will also work closely with key partners, such as the Electoral Commission and Ofcom, to promote knowledge exchange and co-creation and inform evidence-based policy in this area.
Dr Andreu Casas, a computational social scientist, has remarkable experience researching social media and politics.
His past work has been funded by the US National Science Foundation, the Dutch Research Council, and the European Research Council; and it has been published in top academic journals such as Science Advances, American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and a book with Cambridge University Press, among other outlets.
Dr Casas said: “Most people rely on social media to learn about and engage in politics, but platforms are increasingly curating the content they show to users, which means that today a handful of private companies play a key role in framing political debates and amplifying or downplaying particular voices.”
“Rigorous academic research on how social media platforms curate and moderate political content is necessary so we can understand its prevalence and effects on citizens and democracy.
“I am excited to start this initiative and engage closely with our partners, media, and lay audiences to contribute innovation in this research area.”
Professor Ruth Livesey Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research and Innovation added: “We are delighted to see this recognition of the quality of Andreu’s research by the transformational UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship scheme. It is testament to his emerging interdisciplinary leadership.
“This project will work with partners to address vital concerns around information and trust in the era of social media, building on our University area of strength in AI and new technologies.”
Further information about the London Social Media Observatory can be found on X, BlueSky, Instagram, and LinkedIn or email hazel.stutz@rhul.ac.uk
