Victoria Lemieux, Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia, served as Senior Visiting Research Scientist at ZIBR from January to June 2026. Her research examined whether and how blockchain-based juridical systems can support the governance of artificial intelligence particularly when handling sensitive archival and cultural heritage materials. The result is Clio-X, a framework that combines "compute-to-data" principles with blockchain-enabled provenance, access, and governance controls: researchers gain controlled access to analytical outputs without original documents ever leaving the archive.
Lemieux conducted 29 interviews with archival and cultural heritage professionals and presented her findings at ten international conferences, including in Geneva, Prague, Bern, and Berlin. The study found that technical feasibility alone does not guarantee institutional trust, transparency, governance by public-interest institutions, and ongoing dialogue with affected communities is equally essential. The findings will be presented at the Data for Policy Conference, to be held in Barcelona on September 8-10 and to the journal Data & Policy (Cambridge University Press) as well as two further publications in progress.
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