RESEARCH CLUSTERS

The Digital Social Science cluster has had a busy year with several events and a new PhD Studentship in partnership with the University of Copenhagen. In October, they held a two day Digital Worker Enquiry workshop showcasing worker-led data projects in collaboration with several partners and with support from the Workers' Observatory, which led to a publication. In the same month they hosted Working on/with Industry: A Collaborative Conversation featuring Siva Vaidhyanathan (University of Virginia) with Ewa Luger (Design Informatics), Shannon Vallor (Edinburgh Futures Institute) and Kate Miltner (Centre for Research in Digital Education), and in April they hosted a talk by Professor Liz Losh.

This year a number of cluster members have been involved with the development of a new joint PhD in cultural heritage and other activities with the Una Europa consortium of universities. They are contributing to two of the transnational research teams and several research projects, co-organising a joint PhD workshop in Helsinki in May 2022, supervising as part of the first cohort of the Una-Her-Doc programme, and are members of the self-steering group developing the PhD programme. 

Tanja Romankiewicz and cluster co-lead Jen Ross are now also leads for one of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Themes, bringing their interests in digital cultural heritage and digital engagement to the work of the 'Cultural Heritage' group.

Cluster members have been involved with many impactful projects this year, including the exhibition Telling Tales of Engagement: Poetic Expressions of Smart Donations with Oxfam, created in response to Chris Speed's OxChain project, a new film by Itandehui Jansen, Signs and Gestures which received the Audience Award for Best Short Film at the Cambria Film Festival, and cluster lead Kate Wright's work on how media influences government allocation of humanitarian aid. The findings of this project have been presented to several UN agencies, as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross, European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations and the Norwegian Refugee Council. 

The Digital Global Development cluster focuses on the role of digital technology in the context of international development and humanitarianism. As well as hosting informal research sharing and networking events for cluster members, over the last year cluster lead Andreas Hackl has been collaborating with the International Labour Organization and UNHCR in a project that seeks to improve working conditions and reduce risks for refugees in the online gig economy. This work has involved regular consultations and advisory in the design of a joint ILO-UNHCR project. Negotiations about an implementation partnership agreement between the ILO and the University of Edinburgh are currently underway, with the aim of generating new connections and UN consultancy roles for researchers at SSPS with expertise in the digital aspects of development and work. 

This year has seen FinTech and Financial Services host a major international conference Economics of Financial Technology (May 2022) and grow their PhD in Financial Technology programme which now has six fully-funded studentships, each either fully or co-sponsored by an industry partner. Such collaborations enable students to access real-world data and deliver impactful research addressing key FinTech challenges. The cluster has also been instrumental to negotiating the newly announced £7.5M UoE-abrdn partnership to establish the Centre for Investing Innovation, which will be hosted by EFI. Dr Sotirios Sabanis, Reader in the School of Mathematics and an active member of the cluster, will be the Centre’s founding Director.

The Tourism, Technology & Data Cluster focuses on the strategic application of technologies in tourism and hospitality, and data analytics. This year they are a partner in the AHRC-funded project Towards Large-scale Cultural Analytics in the Arts and Humanities, among other projects.