200,000 Danish kroner for research project on free software

Cash reward and support for PhD project

It may be difficult to see what trust and software have to do with each other, but Malgorzata Ciesielska from the Department of Organization is working on a PhD project about exactly this.

In her project, she deals with trust in connection with open source – free and open software. With open source, users (private users, companies, and public institutions) have direct access to the source codes and thereby, they can design their programmes themselves.

- Trust becomes a potential problem in most communities that develop and use free software. With open source, the same user can be working as an employee in a company and also as a private person and thereby working on the basis of competitive logics. This is the subject of my project, says Malgorzata Ciesielska, who has been granted financial support for her research.

Support for collection of information in Finland

The PhD project has received 200,000 Danish kroner in financial support from the Velux foundation’s research programme Social Tillid (Social Trust). The foundation supports projects that can help to put focus on the concept of trust.

The money will help to cover travel expenses and expenses in connection with collection of information for the project, and Malgorzata Ciesielska welcomes the support. She has recently got access to Nokia’s Open Source Department in Finland.

Social Tillid – support for research

The the Velux foundation’s research programme Social Tillid (Social Trust) supports research projects that combine social science and humanities in order to understand the concept of trust. A committee consisting of Danish and international experts in this field assessed 101 applications. Nine of these were granted support, including Malgorzata Ciesielska’s PhD project "Collaboration and trust in open source innovation. Tales from the IT field about business participation in Open Source Software Communities".