We warmly invite you to the upcoming LSTS Doctoral Seminar, taking place on Tuesday 3 November 2026, from 12:30 to 13:30 CET, in Room C4.05 and online via Microsoft Teams.
The seminar will be led by Nicolas Heynderickx, an LSTS PhD researcher, supervised by Prof. Sophie Stalla-Bourdillon and Prof. Paul De Hert. His research examines how the AI Act's transparency obligations are implemented in practice. Alongside his research, he works as an independent consultant in EU affairs and AI governance and is developing a start-up in AI regulatory compliance.
Nicolas will present his work entitled “The Transparency Obligations of the EU Artificial Intelligence Act Tested by Their Implementation: Regulated Actors’ Practices, Informational Intermediation and the Normative Conditions of Effectiveness”.
Abstract
The AI Act makes transparency one of the pillars of its compliance architecture. Yet a central question remains open: what does it take for transparency obligations to produce information that is enforceable, traceable and actually usable by those to whom it is addressed?
The Regulation sets out a dense and stratified set of obligations: information of natural persons (Article 50), technical documentation of high-risk systems (Articles 11–13 and Annex IV), documentation duties for general-purpose AI models (Articles 53–55) and the EU public database (Article 71). Between the text and its addressees, however, transparency is materially constructed. Regulated actors appropriate and redefine their obligations within their organisations. Private regulatory-intelligence intermediaries select, translate and structure the information on which compliance relies. The effectiveness of transparency therefore depends as much on these practices as on the legal text itself.
The presentation sets out the research design of a doctoral project addressing this question. It first outlines a doctrinal qualification of the Regulation's transparency regimes. It then presents the empirical strategy, which combines a qualitative inquiry among regulated actors and intermediaries with an auto-ethnographic case study. That case study draws on the researcher's position as founder of a regulatory-intelligence platform. The presentation finally discusses the expected contribution: a theory of informational intermediation, and the normative conditions under which private information systems.
Practical information
- Date: Tuesday 3 November 2026
- Time: 12:30–13:30 CET
- Location: Room C4.05, VUB, and online via Microsoft Teams (please write to Anastasia.Karagianni@vub.be to join online)
We look forward to welcoming you to this seminar and to the discussion that follows.