Trinity-led Project Will Build a More Trustworthy Internet for Public Knowledge

Researchers from Trinity College Dublin are leading a new interdisciplinary research programme to investigate whether public trust in expertise has been weakened by the way institutions have adapted to the internet.

The three-year initiative is led by the Research Ireland ADAPT Centre in Trinity’s School of Computer Science and Statistics, in collaboration with dotPublic. It will examine whether the widespread adoption of commercial platforms, tools, and publishing practices has altered how public institutions present themselves online, and how that may have affected the public’s ability to recognise, trust, and rely on authoritative information.

Over the past two decades, universities, libraries, broadcasters, and public bodies have moved online using systems designed primarily for commercial purposes. The research will examine whether some features of these systems, including a focus on engagement, attention, and the harvesting of behavioural data, may undermine public interest priorities, including privacy, accountability, and long-term access. It will explore whether, as a result, public-interest information now circulates in environments where it can be harder to distinguish from material with no obligation to accuracy, provenance, or public responsibility.

The programme will also test whether this shift has had measurable consequences. Specifically, it will examine whether the conditions under which information is published, including the presence of tracking technologies, the absence of provenance, and the use of metrics designed to prolong engagement rather than serve the public, have contributed to changing levels of trust in expert institutions.

Specifically, the research will address three core questions:

—  What civic standards should publicly trusted information providers meet online in order to remain recognisable and accountable?
—  Can those standards be sustained through institutional commitment alone, or are they eroded over time by the surrounding digital environment?
—  Could new forms of infrastructure, including a dedicated .PUBLIC domain, provide a more stable foundation for trusted knowledge and information services?

Over the course of the programme, the team will define and test civic publishing standards, develop open-source tools to support them, and explore ways of making the origin, authorship, and integrity of information visible and verifiable. The work will include experimental studies to assess how different publishing conditions affect user trust and behaviour.

As part of this, the ADAPT Centre’s own digital outputs will serve as a live pilot. As the Centre approaches the end of its current funding cycle in December 2026, the programme will examine how its publicly funded research and digital resources can remain accessible, verifiable, and trustworthy over time.

This pilot will provide a practical test case within a broader investigation into the future of public knowledge online and is designed to be replicable by any publicly funded institution facing the same challenge.

Dave Lewis, Professor of Computer Science in Trinity and the ADAPT Centre, said: “Public institutions have adapted to the internet as it exists. This programme allows us to ask whether that environment is aligned with their purpose, and whether the way information is presented online is affecting how it is understood and trusted.”

Tony Ageh, Executive Director of dotPublic and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Trinity, added: “The question is not simply how to preserve information, but whether the conditions in which it is published are changing how people relate to it. If trust in public knowledge has declined, we need to understand whether that is a failure of institutions or a consequence of the systems they have been operating within.”

The programme is jointly led by Prof. Lewis, who provides academic leadership and oversight, and Tony Ageh, who leads external partnerships and programme development. Trinity will host the research and ensure that all findings are published openly.