Cambridge Disinformation Summit (2027)
23 Mar 2027
24 Mar 2027
25 Mar 2027
Time to be confirmed
By invitation only
University of Cambridge
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Incentives and power infrastructure that support or amplify malign cognitive influence and disinformation campaigns
The 2027 Cambridge Disinformation Summit will convene multi-discipline global academic, legislator, regulator, and professional thought leaders to focus on incentives and power infrastructure that support or amplify malign cognitive influence and disinformation campaigns.
The Call for Papers is now open. Papers will be selected by an interdisciplinary scientific committee.
Research and discussions will examine non-mutually-exclusive incentives regarding corrupt:
- Power
- Wealth accumulation
- Physical gratification or control
- Social-psychological benefits
Research and discussions will also examine power infrastructures that might include (but are not limited to):
- Corporate structures
- Media structures
- Political structures
- Use or threat of violence
- Belief system structures
- Social identity structures
- Wealth transfers
- Asymmetric law enforcement
- Abuse of litigation
Scientific committee members
The Scientific Committee includes:
Anat Admati
The George GC Parker Professor of Finance and Economics
Stanford University Graduate School of Business
Imran Ahmed
CEO
Center for Countering Digital Hate
Henry Adjer
Founder
Latent Space Advisory
Brad Badertscher
Deloitte Professor of Accountancy
University of Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business
Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Professor of History and Italian Studies
New York University School of Arts and Sciences
Beth Blankespoor
Professor of Accounting and Marguerite Reimers Endowed Faculty Fellow
University of Washington Foster School of Business
Emma Briant
Visiting Associate Professor
University of Notre Dame Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society
Meredith Clark
Associate Professor of Race and Political Communication
University of North Carolina Hussman School of Journalism and Media
Yonca Ertimur
Tandean Rustandy Esteemed Endowed Professor
University of Colorado Leeds School of Business
Annie Farmer
Co-Founder
Pivot Psychology Austin
Alan Jagolinzer
Professor of Financial Accounting
Co-Director of the Cambridge Centre for Financial Reporting and Accountability
University of Cambridge Judge Business School
Christian Leuz
Charles F Pohl Distinguished Service Professor of Accounting and Finance
University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Stephan Lewandowsky
Chair in Cognitive Psychology
University of Bristol School of Psychological Science
Oliver Linton
Professor of Political Economy and Fellow of Trinity College
University of Cambridge
Kelvin Low
Professor of Law
The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
Michael Mann
Presidential Distinguished Professor
University of Pennsylvania Dept of Earth and Environmental Science
Alice Marwick
Director of Research, Data & Society Research Institute
Senior Faculty Researcher, Center for Information, Technology and Public Life (CITAP)
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Gina Neff
Professor of Responsible AI
Queen Mary University London
Executive Director
University of Cambridge Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy
Loriana Pelizzon
Deputy Scientific Director, Director Department of Financial Markets
SAFE/Goethe University
Co-Vice-Chair of the Advisory Scientific Committee
European Systemic Risk Board
Shiva Rajgopal
Roy Bernard Kester and TW Byrnes Professor of Accounting and Auditing
Columbia Business School
Yoel Roth
Vice President Trust and Safety
Match Group
Marietje Schaake
International Policy Director
Stanford University Cyber Policy Center
Jake Shapiro
Professor of Politics and International Affairs
Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs
Chester Spatt
Pamela R and Kenneth B Dunn Professor of Finance
Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business
Former Chief Economist
US Securities and Exchange Commission
Kate Starbird
Professor of Human Centered Design and Engineering
University of Washington Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering
David Stillwell
Professor of Computational Social Science
Director of the Psychometrics Centre
University of Cambridge Judge Business School
Eric Talley
Marc and Eva Stern Professor of Law and Business
Columbia Law School
Shannon Vallor
Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence
Director, Centre for Technomoral Futures
University of Edinburgh Futures Institute
Sander van der Linden
Professor of Social Psychology in Society
University of Cambridge Department of Psychology
Joachim von Braun
President of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
The Vatican
Call for papers
Papers from any discipline or research methods will be considered that relate to the Summit’s theme:
Research on incentives or power infrastructures that support malign cognitive influence or disinformation campaigns
Cognitive influence is when outside agents affect thoughts, beliefs, decisions, emotions and actions. Disinformation is when a messenger responds to incentives to intentionally disseminate misleading or false messages to a targeted audience for exploitation. Malign cognitive influence and disinformation campaigns are typically preparatory acts for affiliated corruption or harm.
The Summit is interested in compelling research that examines who deploys malign cognitive influence or disinformation campaigns, why they deploy them, what power structures they create or utilise to maximise their potential impact, how to measure actors’ perceived salience of incentives, how to measure the impact of supportive power infrastructures, and what policies or practice might intervene on incentives or power infrastructures.
Potential research foci for paper submissions might include (but are not limited to):
- Evidence regarding incentives or benefits that accrue to malign cognitive influence or disinformation campaigns:
- accruing power
- accruing wealth
- physical gratification or control
- social or psychological benefits (eg absolution of shame, narcissistic supply, social identity)
- Evidence of actors’ power infrastructures that sustain or amplify reach or impact for these campaigns, eg:
- entrenched corporate power
- entrenched government power
- fusion of corporate-government power
- leveraging of existing belief or identity systems (eg, religion, nationalism, tribalism, racism, conspiracy beliefs)
- celebrity or influence power
- power over media or algorithmic reach or content
- deployment of fear or intimidation
- economic power or dependency
- attention or access dependency (eg media monopoly, news deserts)
- emotional or psychological appeal, dependency or addiction
- Methods to identify salient incentives or power infrastructures.
- Methods to measure the relative salience of campaign actors’ incentives, eg which matter and why?
- Methods to measure the impact of supportive power infrastructures, eg how successful would the campaign be under different assessments of power?
- Evidence of the efficacy of policy or practice interventions on actors’ incentives or power infrastructures.
Papers will be selected by the scientific committee to be invited for presentation at the events in Cambridge, UK.
Priority will be given to newer working papers that can both inform and be informed by the Summit’s interdisciplinary audience.
Submit your paper
The call for papers is open from 15 September 2026 through 23:59 GMT on 31 October 2026.
1
Pay the £35 per paper submission fee
(To inquire about a need-based submission fee waiver, email CFRA@jbs.cam.ac.uk.)
Submission fees offset administrative costs and enhance process security.
2
Submit your paper
Please submit a full paper. Abstracts and proposals will not be considered.
Papers must be in English language or have full English translation.
There are no paper format or length requirements as the committee does not intend to impose unnecessary cosmetic work costs on authors who are likely targeting a highly varied array of publishing outlets.
Papers that have already been published will be considered; however, the committee prefers newer papers that offer fresh insights or perspectives.
Authors will be notified about their paper’s selection status by the end of December 2026.
