Prize recipient 2025 | Claes Holger de Vreese

Claes Holger de Vreese is a pioneering and internationally revered expert on the role of automation, algorithms and artificial intelligence in democratic processes. He is a resourceful academic leader who has launched vital research centres at his two host institutions: the University of Southern Denmark and the University of Amsterdam. Claes Holger de Vreese makes definitive marks on a complex research field that requires deep basic research and the capacity to engage big societal questions.

Claes Holger de Vreese is Professor of Political Communication at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research and Affiliated Professor of Political Science and Journalism at the University of Southern Denmark. He provides exact and interdisciplinary scientific bases for insights into political behaviours that are influenced by digital media. While dedicated to vigorous basic research into media, AI, and democracy, Claes de Vreese’s research informs public policy work, and it has had impact at EU level.

Next to his own scholarly merits, Claes Holger de Vreese is a scientific dynamo as a leader for others. He contributed to making the Amsterdam School of Communication Research at the University of Amsterdam the leading and largest European research environment in political communication and, also in Amsterdam, founded the Center of Political Communication which ingeniously integrates scholars and students from communication science, political science, psychology and sociology.  

At the University of Southern Denmark, Claes Holger de Vreese has launched The Digital Democracy Centre, which combines technological, social, legal and ethical research perspectives on the impact of digital technology and AI on media, politics and democracy. This all bears the clear stamp of his vision and ingenuity.

Claes Holger de Vreese is a visionary scholar and a research leader who incites methodological vigour and scholarly originality for the benefit of academic peers, new scholarly generations and the wider society.