Trilateral Insights – July 2025

Get the latest insights from Trilateral in our new monthly article, featuring the latest developments from across our innovation and research teams.

Insights | Health

Podcast: Integrating AI into personalised rehabilitation

An estimated 2.4 billion people live with health conditions that could be eased by rehabilitation, straining healthcare systems and challenging clinicians who need to tailor treatment options to each individual patient. AI and data-driven tools offer a path to delivering personalised care at scale; but unlocking their potential requires knowledge sharing and trust-building within and beyond the medical profession.

Trilateral recently launched the first episode of the PREPARE podcast, amplifying voices from the frontline of rehabilitation care. The episode convenes clinicians to reflect on how AI tools can (and should) support personalised patient recovery, and covers the complexities of AI-supported care, what personalised care means in practice, the importance of data standardisation and other data management practices, as well as approaches to fostering patient trust in AI-assisted healthcare tools. By delivering conversations on the cutting-edge of healthcare technologies, the episode supports research and innovation by sharing knowledge, fosters trust in AI and data-driven solutions, and contributes to inclusive, person-centred innovation in healthcare.

This podcast was produced as part of the EU-funded PREPARE project, which aims to develop AI tools to support personalised physical rehabilitation.

You can listen to the podcast here.

Insights | Ethics, Human Rights and Emerging Technologies

Practical recommendations for mitigating AI bias

AI systems are increasingly used by governments and the private sector to make decisions affecting EU citizens, such as hiring, healthcare, finance, and law enforcement. But these systems are prone to bias, which could lead to discriminatory outcomes. Without proper safeguards, their deployment risks amplifying inequalities, threatening human rights, and undermining public trust.

In a recent policy brief we developed for the EU-funded MAMMOth project, which develops software for AI bias assessment and mitigation, Trilateral’s Dr Ian Slesinger proposes a strategic approach for EU policymakers to address this challenge. In the brief he identifies four key pillars and issues recommendations for implementation under each. The first pillar advocates for best practices and technical resources, including developing training programmes to enhance understanding of AI fairness and encouraging EU regulatory bodies to issue clear guidance. The second focuses on empowering stakeholder participation, including by embedding fairness into AI systems through interdisciplinary co-design processes and ensuring individuals have the right to appeal AI decisions. The third pillar emphasises the importance of monitoring and policy adaptation. As AI technologies evolve, governance structures must keep pace by issuing up-to-date technical standards and developing mechanisms for policy revision. Finally, the fourth pillar recommends developing context-specific solutions, aligning fairness definitions and technical tools with the social, legal, and operational realities in different sectors.

This approach recognises AI bias as a sociotechnical issue that requires collaboration across data science, social science, law, civil society, and industry. The real-world impact of this research lies in its ability to inform EU policy with an adaptable and practical roadmap to ensuring AI serves the public good without causing harm.

You can read the policy brief here.

Insights | Cybersecurity

Anticipating the impact of emerging technologies on disinformation campaigns

Targeted disinformation campaigns and foreign information manipulation have been deployed to undermine democratic processes and societal cohesion in a number of countries. Already highly destructive in the age of social media, the impact of these campaigns can be exponentially amplified by emerging technologies.

In a recent study, Trilateral sought to anticipate the potential impact of emerging technologies on the future of disinformation. Drawing on insights from experts across civil society, academia and the private sector, the report warns of a sharp increase in disinformation driven by generative AI, deepfakes and algorithmic targeting. The authors issue key recommendations to help governments and individuals build resilience against foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI), such as acting decisively and cooperatively by developing and enforcing regulations and legislation, holding digital platforms accountable, increasing investments in technological solutions, and enhancing media and digital literacy across societies.

This work reinforces Trilateral’s commitment to evidence-based foresight and anticipatory policymaking in the face of evolving digital threats, and advances society’s ability to understand and respond to to the emerging threat of information manipulation.

This study was produced as part of the ATHENA project, which develops tools to detect, analyse, and counter foreign information manipulation and interference.

Read the full study here.

Insights | Climate, Energy and Environment

Exploring gaps in ethical frameworks for climate research and innovation

A new report led by Trilateral’s Chris Tzouvaras offers critical insights into the gaps in the ethical foundations of climate-related research and innovation (R&I) across the European Research Area. The report reviews 213 existing ethics and integrity guidelines, identifying significant gaps in how environmental and climate change R&I is currently addressed and highlighting a need for more robust ethical guidance to support the Green Transition.

The findings reveal that 58% of the reviewed documents made no reference to environmental or climate-related issues; of those that did, only 6% covered these topics comprehensively. The report highlights a series of shortcomings with existing guidelines. Key areas in emerging technology research, such as geoengineering, were largely overlooked. Topics such as sustainability, biodiversity, and pollution were often addressed only at a high level, with limited focus on practical implementation, while justice-related themes including intergenerational fairness were neglected. Further, the integration of ethical concepts across these guidelines was inconsistent, while risk assessment and stakeholder engagement were inadequately addressed.

The report issues targeted recommendations to close these gaps, including the integration of justice-based approaches, the development of stakeholder-specific guidance, and the creation of training materials for researchers and institutions. In doing so, this work lays the foundations for more ethically-grounded climate research and technology development across Europe. By strengthening the ethical infrastructure of climate R&I, this research supports the goals of the European Green Deal and ensures that innovation aimed at tackling climate change does not inadvertently cause harm or overlook key social and environmental justice concerns.

The report was produced as part of the EU-funded RE4GREEN project, which aims to develop an ethics framework to guide research and innovation activities targeting climate change.

You can read the full report here.

Towards a comprehensive framework for ethical and responsible standardisation

Standardisation, though seemingly technical and neutral, carries significant social and political weight, often reflecting underlying values. This is evident in fields like AI, where ethical frameworks are explicitly integrated into standardisation.

Trilateral’s Irma Poder recently co-authored a paper in which she presents a framework for ethical and responsible standardisation by adapting Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) principles. The paper highlights potential issues in standardisation, including overlooked social impacts, market capture, and expertise loss during certification. It also emphasises the commercial origins of standardisation and its role in knowledge creation. These insights form the basis of a framework built on Inclusivity, Anticipation, Stewardship, and Leadership. The core of this framework is the integration of ethical and social considerations from the outset of the standardisation process, weaving them into its substance and form, and ensuring continued involvement beyond a standard's launch. This adaptable framework leverages cross-disciplinary concepts and best practices, allowing for meaningful application and verification at various levels, from committees and standards bodies to governments and research funders.

Responsible standardisation offers several key benefits:

• Normative coherence: it aligns standard-setting with societal values, enhancing legitimacy and public trust.
• Anticipatory resilience: it enables early identification and mitigation of social and ethical risks, reducing costly revisions.
• Strategic advantage: organisations leading on ethical standards gain reputational capital, smoother regulatory alignment, and stronger stakeholder relations.

This approach transforms responsible standardisation from optional virtue signalling into a robust and essential practice.

This article was produced as part of the EU-funded STRATEGY and PestNu projects.

Read the full article here.

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