Rashid Mushkani will undertake a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Law and Centre de recherche en droit public (CRDP) under Professor Catherine Régis. Supported by IVADO’s 2026 postdoctoral research funding program and Régis’s research funds, he will examine how people affected by AI can influence the decisions governing its design and use.
The project, AI Pluralism Index: An interoperable framework for pluralism in civic AI, will further develop the AI Pluralism Index (AIPI), a framework for assessing participatory governance, inclusivity and diversity, transparency, and accountability. It builds on his doctoral research at the UNESCO Chair in Urban Landscape on public participation in public-space design and AI governance. The work asks how institutions can recognize different public values without treating disagreement as an error to remove.
Mushkani plans to test the index’s indicators, document AI providers’ practices, and develop open-source audit tools and procurement guidance for Québec and Canada. Conducting this work in a law faculty will connect participatory design methods with questions of institutional responsibility and human rights: what participation requires of organizations, what evidence they should make public, and how they can be held accountable. The aim is to give public institutions evidence they can use to assess who has a say in AI governance and whether commitments to participation are reflected in practice.
More on IVADO’s 2026 postdoctoral funding recipients: ivado.ca