Dr. Aphra Kerr of the Department of Sociology has received an IASH-SSPS /Digital Research Fellowship to visit the University of Edinburgh, Scotland from the 1 February to 31 May 2019.
The Fellowship is to work on a new project entitled ‘Data Intermediaries, Data Work & Data Inequalities: Towards Socially Responsible Data Driven Innovation’. The project seeks to understand processes of datafication in society, and the emergence of data intermediaries and data workers. The project will focus on data governance issues and the role of data workers in the contrasting contexts of the cultural/creative industries and smart cities.
She will work with Prof. Robin Williams of the Institute for Science, Technology and Innovation Studies) at the University of Edinburgh. The University of Edinburgh has a long tradition in STS and the history of technology. Science, Technology and Innovation Studies (STIS) was established in 2008 through the merger of the Science Studies Unit and the Research Centre for Social Sciences. Building on the legacy of these centres, present members of staff continue to research the social shaping of science, technology, medicine and innovation and how they, in turn, shape society.
This project brings together Sociology, Science, Technology and Innovation Studies and the field of Data Science. The University of Edinburgh is part of the UK’s Alan Turing Institute, a UK wide institute for data science and artificial intelligence and home to the Bayes Centre, which is working with a range of partners on innovations in data science.
Aphra will be on sabbatical from the 1st of Feb. 2019 to avail of this opportunity.