Emerging Technology and Digital Society research group

The group builds on the work of the COSMOS project and is dedicated to understanding the risks, challenges and opportunities associated with emerging disruptive and transformative technologies (e.g. social media, big data, new forms of manufacture, robotics and drone technology), exploring and operationalising collaborative problem solving and theory building, methodological development, responsible innovation, digital pedagogies, scoping the parameters of networked labour and digital political economy, and a theoretical and empirical understanding of digital civics, digital community, new forms of inequality, participation, culture and technology-in-action, human-machine interaction and the wider re-ordering of social relations in the digital age. Furthermore, we seek to locate and understand these transformations across key domains of social life inclusive of work, education, health, social care, culture, governance, business, the environment and everyday interaction and experience.

The aim of the group is to promote and support interdisciplinary oriented sociological research that addresses an urgent need to understand the social implications of Emerging Technology and Digital Society at system, networked and situated frames of social action and organisation.

In addition to providing a supportive environment for postgraduate scholars and early career researchers, and co-ordinating collaborative funded research proposals and projects, this research group provides digital method, theory and data workshops/training and promotes the sharing of best practice, arranges relevant seminars and presentations with external partners and speakers and builds national and international connections and networks with the socio-technical futures and digital social research community.