It’s been an exciting morning finding out that one of the EU Marie Curie International Training Network (ITN) proposals that I was part of writing last fall has been funded.
Fundamentals of Design Competence for Our Digital Future – D-Code seeks to develop a fundamentally new understanding of how design, as an interdisciplinary field of research and practice, can anticipate the digital transformation of society powered by Big Data, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, and form a holistic understanding of the different interests and agencies involved – human and artificial – to create the conditions for responsible and sustainable futures.
In other words – we want to rethink design as practice and I will lead the UCPH team heading the Practical Ethics work-package. Our goal is going to be to figure out what ethical and responsible design practice might look like, what sort of changes or transitions from current design approaches might be required, how do we train new designers in such a practice and what is necessary to support current working designers in integrating ideas of responsibility, accountability and ethics ideas.
The UCPH team will be responsible for two specific projects. The first will explore the notion of ‘multi-sided value’ in data-driven services – what do people get out of data, what do we mean by value with respect to personal data, what do people get in terms of value in data exchange relationships like Facebook and Google, etc. The second project will develop an ‘ethics in action’ framework for data-driven services, building on the work conducted by all of the other project partners.
D-Code provides funding for two Ph.D. positions although given that this is an ITN project, there are stipulations for eligibility. The most important stipulation here is: All nationalities can apply, but you can only apply to a project which is hosted in a country in which you did not reside or carry your main activity (such as work or study) for more than 12 months within the last 3 years. If you are interested in being part of the project please contact me. The formal project announcement and job adverts will be available in January with a February 14 deadline. The start date will be June 1st. If you are interested please contact me.
