A new paper from CIM member Carlos Cámara-Menoyo along with Joanna Suchomska, Wojciech Goszczyński, Pia Laborgne, Andrea Pierce, Michał Wróblewski, João Porto de Albuquerque and Simon Jirka has just been published in Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement. The paper expands on the work made at Creating Interfaces project and complements the previous paper published in Environmental Science and Policy by focussing on the lessons learnt on food procurement through the implementation of an Urban Living Lab methodology.

Abstract:

This article presents a case study on the experimental co-creation process of a digital platform supporting Sustainable Public Food Procurement (SPFP) in public kindergartens in a medium-sized city in Poland. The organisation of SPFP requires a dedicated technological infrastructure to ensure the information flow among food producers, kindergarten employees, children and parents. To this end, a digital platform was designed to enable contact, assessment of food quality and food procurement environmental impact, and the communication of needs and problems among all the actors involved in the food procurement system for kindergartens. The article also discusses the results of the field research and the method of Urban Living Labs, highlighting the key challenges faced by those seeking to combine knowledge about food and the natural environment with public food procurement. The principal difficulties include the availability, accessibility and possible application of data on the environmental costs of food production, the individualisation of needs and motivations related to public catering in educational facilities, and the specific nature of the public sector responsible for public food procurement.

This article demonstrates AI is unlike other controversial technologies. It presents a super-controversy, which links technicalities with structural problems in society.

The Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies seeks to appoint a one-year full-time Teaching Fellow to ideally start by September 2024.

Candidates will possess experience in teaching in Higher Education and have backgrounds in either a) data science, contemporary artificial intelligence (AI), computational social science, and/or cloud computing/big data; or b) social studies of data science, AI and/or cloud computing/big data; or ideally c) a combination of technical and critical skills in the above topics, appropriate for research-led teaching. You should have completed a PhD in a field related to the above, or have your viva scheduled.

Mini seminar series co-organised by CIM researcher Dr Neda Genova will take place in London on May 9th & 16th (Queen Mary UoL) and May 23rd (UCL)

This year Professor Noortje MarresLink opens in a new window (Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick) will give the Annual Lecture of the National Centre for Research Methods.
 
She will discuss the new challenges that AI poses to the sciences of society.

The event takes place on Tuesday, 21 May 2024 at The Royal Society in London. It will also be streamed online.
The event begins at 18:00, with a reception and light refreshments, giving guests the chance to network with researchers from other disciplines and sectors.

More info about her talk can be found hereLink opens in a new window.

Molly Pugh-Jones (STOPAIDS) and Meg Davis (Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick)

Since June 2023, CIM hosts the Digital Health and Rights Project ConsortiumLink opens in a new window, an international alliance of social scientists, human rights lawyers, health advocates, and networks of people living with HIV who collaborate to conduct participatory action research in low- and middle-income countries, and advocate for a human rights-based approach to governance of digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI). Professor Meg DavisLink opens in a new window (CIM) is principal investigator and project lead for the consortium. This year is a critical moment for global digital governance. Last week, the co-chairs of the Global Digital Compact shared an initial draft. Molly Pugh-JonesLink opens in a new window, Advocacy Manager at STOPAIDS coordinating advocacy for the consortium, reflects on key priorities for the Compact.

The ‘Scaling Trust’ project is a UKRI Future Leaders’ Fellowship examining trust in the cyber security profession. As the initial period of funding comes to an end, CIM academics Matt Spencer and Daniele Pizio have published two policy papers that engage with current challenges in cyber security.

‘Assurance by Principle: Preparing for the next generation of technology assurance’ is a report by Matt Spencer, published through the Research Institute for Sociotechnical Cyber Security (RISCS). It provides a series of recommendations for moving technology assurance policy away from prescriptive standards, and towards the new ‘goal-based’ approach that has become influential in cyber policy.

‘Deperimeterising Zero Trust: Challenging metaphors in information security’ is a policy brief by Matt Spencer and Daniele Pizio, part of the University of Warwick’s Policy Briefing Series. It examines current challenges with the trend towards a ‘Zero Trust’ paradigm for information security, and draws conclusions aimed at industry, government and academia.