INCA launched the Big Tech Watch think tank

24 March 2026 By

Big Tech Watch is an international think tank that investigates the political, economic, and social power of global digital corporations. It has been launched during the final INCA event in Brussels in January 2026 with the aim of carrying forward INCA’s critical work beyond the end of the research project.

In an era where technology shapes nearly every aspect of public and private life, Big Tech Watch focuses on how large platforms influence democracy, labour, sustainability, and everyday social relations. The think tank will study the role of big tech companies in EU, national, and local policymaking, along with the broader effects of digitalisation and artificial intelligence on society.

​Big Tech Watch is rooted in the INCA project’s findings on big tech hegemony across Europe. INCA examined how platforms affect economic life through market concentration, labour digitalisation, and inequality; how they shape politics through lobbying, regulatory influence, and institutional pressure; and how they produce cultural narratives that help legitimise their power. Big Tech Watch takes up these insights and translates them into a research, education, consultancy, and arts.

The Think Tank also aims at working as a bridge between academic research and public engagement. Its activities are designed for students, teachers, researchers, public administrations, and cultural organisations, and they include educational modules, workshops, summer schools, policy-oriented collaborations, and artistic projects. In this sense, Big Tech Watch develops a circular model in which research informs practice, and practice generates new questions and forms of knowledge.

A central concern of Big Tech Watch is the need to make platform power visible and understandable. The think tank will examine how Big Tech shapes the political landscape, how it captures value in digital markets, how it affects working conditions and collective bargaining, and how it reshapes urban, environmental, and infrastructural life. This broad perspective is rooted into a multidisciplinary approach attempting to connect democracy, labour, and technological governance.

More information is available at www.bigtechwatch.eu

Marco Palma, SUPSI