News

17.11.2025

by dgraus in awards

Barbora Wenzlová Wins Award for Thesis on Dutch Algorithm Register

We’re proud to share that Barbora Wenzlová has won the Victorine van Schaick Prize 2025, awarded by the Victorine van Schaick Fund, for her Cultural Data & AI master thesis, written under supervision of Jaap Kamps at the ICAI OpenGov Lab.

Barbora received the award at the annual conference of the KNVI (Koninklijke Nederlandse Vereniging van Informatieprofessionals) in Ermelo on November 6, where she presented her research to an audience of information professionals focused on responsible and transparent digital transformation.

Barbora receiving the KNVI 2025 Award

05.11.2025

by mlarooij in events

OpenGov Lab at the Hackaton Terminal Woo: 'Zoek en Verrijk'!

On Friday, October 31st, and Saterday, November 1st, the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations and the program Open Government (Programma Open Overheid) organised a hackaton to improve the internal process of responding to Woo-requests. David, Damiaan, Maik and Jos (PhD student @ Utrecht University) represented the OpenGov Lab as one of the ten teams that participated in the event!

The team, very focused, at work while the time was running out

27.10.2025

by mlarooij in students

OpenGov Lab at the UvA Thesis Fair 2025

On Friday, October 17th, a delegation (David, Jaap, Damiaan & Maik) of the ICAI OpenGov Lab was present at the UvA (AI) Thesis Fair to talk to prospective thesis students!

David & Maik in action, accompanied by our newly designed OpenGov banners!

26.09.2025

by dgraus in awards

Floris Bos Wins Short Paper Award with OpenGov Thesis

Congratulations to Floris Bos (not pictured), whose Computer Science MSc thesis "Linking References to Documents in Parliamentary Debates" won the Best Short Paper Award at The 29th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL2025) in Tampere, Finland!

Maarten Marx (pictured left) receives the Best Short Paper Award at TPDL2025 on Floris Bos' behalf Maarten Marx (left) with the Best Short Paper Award for Floris' paper at TPDL2025

05.09.2025

by dgraus in team

Maik Larooij joins the ICAI OpenGov Lab

We’re very happy to welcome Maik Larooij to the ICAI OpenGov Lab! This week he started as the lab’s fourth dual PhD student, combining his role as consultant at the Rijksorganisatie voor Informatiehuishouding with pursuing a PhD at the University of Amsterdam. Maik will be supervised by David Graus (co-promotor), alongside Maarten Marx (co-promotor) and Jaap Kamps (promotor).

Maarten Marx, Maik Larooij, and David Graus in the OpenGov Lab

06.05.2025

by dgraus

Kickoff ICAI OpenGov Lab at LAB42

Yesterday, the ICAI OpenGov Lab had its official kick-off at LAB42 UvA at Science Park in Amsterdam! The lab's Dual PhD candidates Damiaan Reijnaers, Lisa Winters, and Patricia Moeskops presented their research plans to the lab and partners from Rijksorganisatie voor Informatiehuishouding (RvIHH) and I-Partnerschap!

ICAI OpenGov Lab folks in front of LAB42 Lisa Winters, Erna Ruijer, Jaap Kamps, Paul van den Akker, Marion Hermans-Koelemij, Peter van der Donk, Patricia Panhuis, Patricia Moeskops, Damiaan Reijnaers, Sander Verhoeckx, and David Graus in front of LAB42

10.04.2025

by mmarx and dgraus in conference

OpenGov Lab at ECIR 2025

A large part of the young ICAI OpenGov Lab team presented their work at the European Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR) in Lucca, Italy.
Naturally, the trip also included the forging of new ideas over Italian food 🍝.

OpenGov group photo at ECIR 2025 Pepijn van Wijk, David Graus, Maik Larooij, Jaap Kamps, Damiaan Reijnaers, and Jan Hutter at ECIR 2025