Faculty of Social Sciences and NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence Strengthen Collaboration

Large language models have fundamentally changed the way researchers approach questions of behaviour and data. What was, until recently, a slow and resource-intensive process involving the coding, sampling and validation of human behaviour on a large scale can now be approached with new speed and tools. However, this also introduces new risks and demands greater methodological rigour. It is precisely at this intersection of behavioural science, data science, and the rapidly evolving field of AI that the Faculty of Social Sciences at Riga Stradiņš University (RSU SZF) and the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (NATO StratCom COE) are strengthening their partnership.

NATO StratCom COE works to deliver up-to-date and in-depth analysis of methodologies applied by malicious actors across the information space. The main effort goes towards the digital environment analysis, with particular focus on AI and other emerging technologies, to provide a comprehensive and practical knowledge base to those working in the field of strategic communications. Cooperation with surrounding academic and civic communities benefits the knowledge transfer efforts. RSU SZF has established itself as a leading player in Latvian and Baltic social science, and this new collaboration demonstrates that genuine interdisciplinarity between academia and applied strategic research is possible and worthwhile.

RSU SZF and NATO StratCom COE are working together to address such issues as resilience to disinformation and the behavioural effects of AI-mediated communication, which have implications that extend beyond national borders.

“As AI continues to reshape how societies communicate and make decisions, social sciences will play an increasingly important role in understanding its human impact.

This partnership strengthens our ability to combine social science, data science, and strategic communications to develop knowledge that enhances societal resilience,” says Ieva Puzo, Dean of the RSU Faculty of Social Sciences.

In practical terms, the collaboration will be reciprocal. RSU SZF's capacity in behavioural and data science will be enhanced by direct engagement with the COE's applied research environment and access to real-world data on information dynamics. As AI development continues, future joint projects will become even more firmly rooted in the social sciences, the discipline best equipped to understand how societies think, communicate, make decisions and behave.