Deadline: 03-Mar-2024
The Safe Online has announced a request for expressions of interest to develop a better understanding of the COPL community’s priorities, identify ideas and resources and co-construct next steps of the experimentation process.
The Children Online Protection Laboratory (COPL) is an initiative launched by the President of the French Republic in November 2022 following the launch of the Call to Action to Stand up for children’s rights in the digital environment in November 2021. As a multi-stakeholder international initiative with high political support, the Laboratory aims to bring together governments, technology and digital companies, academic experts and civil society actors to share expertise, best practices and to create and test new solutions to better protect children online. The COPL is uniquely positioned to provide a platform for novel ideas to its community of international organizations and policymakers.
Purpose
- The purpose of this Request for Expression of Interest (EOI) is to identify potential ideas and resources from the COPL community, and to develop a better understanding of its priorities. The EOI submitted will help to collectively shape the design of a subsequent Call for Proposal, through which the next cohort of experimentations will be selected. The forms are short to fill: this is a chance for your organization to contribute to the Laboratory’s cycle of experimentations, and a timely moment to suggest work that aligns with your priorities!
Priorities
- The Children Online Protection Lab community has expressed wanting to address emerging risks and existing gaps in the protection of children online. The COPL is looking for ideas that will respond to pressing needs, in order to support the prototyping and testing of solutions.
- Solutions can be at a national, regional or global level. Please specify the reach of the project. There is no restriction in the nature of projects proposed to the Laboratory. Experimentations can be technological tools at various stages of development:
- Design of a proof of concept that demonstrates an innovative use of technology to address a specific challenge with clear plans for further research and testing.
- Development of new prototypes or products – including hardware/software/content components – or of new features within existing products or tools.
- Adaptation or combination of existing tools to address current gaps, increase efficacy and/or effectiveness, or apply to new use cases.
- Test and validation of an early-stage pilot project to test the efficacy of the solution in a specific context, and generate evidence and lessons-learned for future implementation.
- Since the request for EOI is in the early stage of the experimentation cycle, and is aimed at gathering information about the COPL community’s priorities, it is possible to submit proposals focusing on any area of work with significance for child online protection. This may include, but is not limited to topics such as: intersections of generative Al and children’s digital lives, cyberbullying and harassment, defining ‘good’ and ‘age-appropriate’ design and features, mental health and impact of screens on children, content curation and age-appropriate content, age assurance, etc.
What they are looking for through this E01 request?
- Call for Ideas
- Submissions should include:
- A description of the project explaining how it could address one of the priority areas, as well as how it could be evaluated (more comprehensive descriptions and a protocol to evaluate efficacy and impact will only be required for the CfP submission).
- A list of needs and resources that would help the lead-organization run the experiment, including the scale of funding needed to implement the idea.
- Submissions should include:
- Call for Resources
- Submissions should include:
- Any priorities your organization wishes to address, or solutions you are looking for, to address a specific issue in your country / organization.
- What your organization could potentially contribute, financially (grants) and non-financially (expertise, in-kind tech contributions, advice) to support experimentations.
- Mechanisms used to provide support, and if there are specific conditions attached to that support.
- Submissions should include:
Eligibility Criteria
- Call for Ideas
- At this stage, they are actively seeking submissions. All organizations are invited to submit ideas – whether they are official supporters of the Laboratory or not. Official supporters may invite organisations from their networks to respond to the EOI.
- More restrictions would apply for the subsequent CfP: Non-profit organisations, such as research institutes and academic institutions, civil society organisations (CS0s), non-governmental organisations (NG0s), and international organisations, and private companies are eligible to receive funding through Safe Online. Organizations must be legally registered and follow relevant ethical and regulatory compliance. Governments are not eligible to apply as the lead organization. Consortia are also encouraged to apply; however, the organisation submitting the application will be considered the main grantee, bearing all the contractual responsibilities vis-à-vis the funding entity.
- Call for Resources
- All supporter organizations are encouraged to submit a list of resources they could make available to support experimentations.
- It is possible to submit more than one form for this E0I.
For more information, visit Safe Online.