Goals
Our user-centred and user-driven programme of activities will address key research questions, yielding innovations, across technology, social science, business and user engagement in research:
User engagement
Through the involvement of Years Ahead we will develop a carefully profiled panel of 3,000 end-users. The panel will contribute to the formulation of research strategy, and evaluate the research outputs, as well as being engaged in participatory design, co-design and evaluation activities to ensure that the outputs of our research programme are both meaningful and usable.
Technology
Digital products and applications will be developed to address problems faced by particular excluded communities; these will be: (1) scalable, by expanding niche markets, bringing experimental technologies to market, and meeting robustness needs through economies of scale; (2) transferable, where lessons can be transferred to other excluded groups and to non-excluded populations; (3) viable, with new business models harnessing cultural capital and creative production.
Social science
The convergence of a service economy and user-driven needs will contribute to an "experience economy". The business dynamic in decentralised complex models of emergence builds on notions of social capital and communities of practice. The increasing commoditisation of technology and infrastructure has increasingly placed value on design and experience. These "soft" aspects of both economics and technology development will be developed using a family of well established social science techniques that include ethnomethodology, user-centred design, and cultural probes.
Business
On the one hand, the rapid development of new ICT enables innovations in the strategies, business models, organizational designs and inter-organizational relations that are by far superior to the existing organizational forms, and enhance organizational efficiency and competitiveness. On the other hand, to be viable, any applications and initiatives that facilitate digital inclusion need to be affordable and sustainable. The project will identify and explore sustainable business models and new organizational forms in different domains and areas of application.
