March 2023

Foundation Industries 4.0 In-person Workshop & Networking Event (27th April 2023) at IOM3 London 10am - 4pm (registration open from 9.30am) hosted by Women Innovators In Foundational Industries (WINFI) in collaboration with DIGIT Lab. Digital economy for materials and Industry 4.0 can provide significant benefits to foundation industries, helping them stay competitive in a rapidly evolving global marketplace. The event will feature a series of presentations from innovative businesses using digital technologies and platforms to tackle resource and energy efficiency challenges in the Foundation Industries. DIGIT Lab’s Principal Investigator, Prof Saeema Ahmed-Kristensen, will deliver an interactive challenge-led workshop.

Who should attend:

• Foundation industry/materials businesses (cement; glass; ceramics; paper; metals and bulk chemicals) with expertise or interest in Industry 4.0

• Early career researchers and PhD students studying a relevant topic e.g. digital economy/materials 4.0/data driven design

Why should you attend: As a business, you will gain insight into some of the digital solutions available to support your move to Industry 4.0, leading to increased efficiency, productivity, and cost savings. For ECRs, you will gain insight into how your research can impact the Foundation Industries, which are critical to the global economy as they provide raw materials for other industries. Register here

In the context of digital transformation, the challenges businesses face become more complex, specifically around data and machine learning technologies. Despite having more quantitative information as a resource for value creation than ever before, firms often need help to utilise them in designing new products, services, and user experiences. We will bring the businesses together through a workshop to explore innovation opportunities, utilising data with design approaches.

The workshop will include invited speakers introducing their industry cases and current research on using data for innovation, followed by an interactive session exploring data as a resource for new product/service ideas and the challenges in using data for innovation and exploring new product and service opportunities and review privacy, security, and trust issues. Our approaches investigate how quantitative and qualitative datasets can respond to businesses' current challenges and needs and inform design practices that aim to generate new forms of value alongside economic ones.

Participation: The workshop will be closed, with attendance by invitation only to industry, to be held in London on the 15th of June.

If you are interested in speaking and have a relevant case or wish to express interest in attending, please contact:

Prof Saeema Ahmed-Kristensen: [email protected] 

or 

Dr Boyeun Lee: [email protected]

DIGIT Lab is looking for for a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in business model innovation and the digital transformation in LEO's. Find out more and apply here.

In the summer of 2022, Professor Alan Brown former Director, and also Dr Zena Wood (Co Investigators on DIGIT Lab) were awarded funding for a new project called Defence Data Research Centre (DDRC). We are delighted with the achievement which was developed from a DIGIT Lab partnership with Dstl, and thank Alan for his work as Director and then deputy-director on DIGIT. Zena is Director of DDRC and Alan is Deputy Director. The time commitment DDRC requires from both Alan and Zena, means they will be fully dedicated to DDRC work on DIGIT Lab. We wish them success with the new opportunities created through DDRC.

Dr Tzameret Rubin, Senior Lecturer in Innovation Management at Oxford Brookes University, has joined the DIGIT Lab team as a Co-Investigator.

Work Package Updates

University of East Anglia Testbeds

University of East Anglia (UEA) team are developing Technology Testbeds. The testbeds provide modular tech environments that allow testing specific innovative ideas and solutions before considering real-world, scalable deployments. The research team is interested in the convergence of emerging technologies including AI, Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, Connectivity Technologies (like LoRaWAN, 5G), Data Analytics, and Sensor networks, to enable successful Digital Transformation projects in the UK. Generic, adaptable testbeds are being provided which hopefully can be adjusted and tailored to specific areas where digital transformation is implemented. UEA are in the process of developing a smart seed testbed for application in Smart Agriculture having identified sensors for various factors affecting plant growth (temperature/humidity, light, and soil moisture). These sensors are deployed in the testbed to read those parameters and send the data over a network, to the cloud. The researchers are working on the platforms.

Data Exchanges - findings presented to Digital Catapult Supply Chain Hub

Professor Roger Maull of Challenge 2 (Business Models) has collaborated with a number of colleagues and organisations on the development of data exchanges, the mechanism by which organisations (public or private) share data in such a way that they maintain ownership and control of the data. The focus is specifically on B2B data for the purpose of, for example, ensuring resilience of supply or assessing carbon emissions, or simply to reduce barriers and therefore improve the flow of materials and goods. Findings of this work were presented to over 100 industrialists at a Digital Catapult Supply Chain Hub event. The work has highlighted three key aspects of data exchanges: the interoperability and technology; incentives and operations and governance structures[1]. The work will continue with a Digital Catapult testbed.

[1] Brewer, S., Pearson, S., Maull, R., Godsiff, P., Frey, J.G., Zisman, A., Parr, G., McMillan, A., Cameron, S., Blackmore, H. and Manning, L., 2021. A trust framework for digital food systems. Nature Food, 2(8), pp.543-545.

Digital Transformation in Law firms

Given the lack of research on digital transformation in the professional service industry, and specifically the legal sector, this project aims to answer the following overarching research question “How do law firms undergo digital transformation?” Professor Leroy White and Dr Dimitris Batolas have conducted some semi-structured interviews with C-level executives who lead their company’s digital transformation agenda. Some of the topics being explored are digital maturity; factors that may influence digital transformation; the challenges the firms have to overcome while navigating the digital transformation process; the influence of digital transformation and task automation on organizational and individual outcomes (strategy, culture, job satisfaction, job crafting and well-being). WP3 have begun to create a theoretical framework that will lead the activities. To test the empirical questions they plan to do surveys, and observations.

Responsible Animal Phenomics & Veris App

Dr David Plans (Royal Holloway, University of London) and Dr Jonathan Bird have been working on Veris, a smartphone application that will facilitate the measurement of mental wellbeing within large established organisations. The application will prompt employees to complete a series of valid and reliable mental health inventories. Moreover, the application draws upon sensor data that is available in modern smartphones to provide a more objective measure of mental health. Testing an alpha version of Veris application is underway before it is deployed within a DIGIT Lab partner organisation. The researchers hope to release Veris as an open-source platform to enable other academics to complete mental health-related research more easily.

Digital Innovation: data-driven design & digital platforms

Professor Saeema Ahmed-Kristensen and Dr Boyeun Lee have been developing a preliminary Data-Driven framework having undertaken a systematic literature review of over 180 papers and case. These will be tested, and evaluated in a series of workshops with industry: one with the Foundation Industries 4.0; Designers on Data-driven design process and activity; Industry- exploring the opportunities and the challenges that data for innovation presents to businesses. Professor Mark Thompson has been working on platform models. An ‘NHS Jobs’ case study has been completed to explore the method of leveraging digital platforms in government. An analysis of the key features which made the ‘NHS Jobs’ platform so successful is underway to identify other public sector services which could benefit from a similar platform-based transformation.

National Audit Office Report

This years' report on the digital change by The National Audit Office (NAO), provides a follow up on the progress made by the government in terms of transforming its digital business. While there is progress, there is also a lack of understanding in the opportunities that the digital world offers, thus, slowing the adoption of technologies, and slowly leaving the administration behind. Read More

Trincado-Munoz F, Van Meeteren M, Rubin T, Vorley T (2023). Digital transformation in the world city networks’ advanced producer services complex: A technology space analysis. Geoforum. DOI

Ren Y, Phung-Duc T, Chen JC, Li FY (2023). "Enabling Dynamic Autoscaling for NFV in a Non-Standalone Virtual EPC: Design and Analysis". IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 1–14. DOI.

Wood Z, Hart G (2022, 8–9 December). "Data Reuse: comparing the principles" [Paper presentation], Data Protection Policy, Seattle, USA. DOI.

Hsieh C-Y, Phung-Duc T, Ren Y, Chen JC, "Design and Analysis of Dynamic Block-setup Reservation Algorithm for 5G Network Slicing," in IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing. DOI.

Günther W.A., Thompson M, Mayur, P. (2023). Algorithms as Co-Researchers: Exploring Meaning and Bias in Qualitative Research. In Galliers, R., Simeonova (Ed.), Cambridge Handbook of Qualitative Digital Research. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Boyeun L, Gradinar A, Cooper R, Coulton P. (2022) Designing trustworthy IoT systems: Critical challenges and approaches for generating value. In: Human Interaction and Emerging Technologies. AHFE International, pp. 605-611.

Wan X, Jha A, Kazantsev N, Boh W. (2023). Online-to-Offline Platforms: Examining the Effects of Demand-Side Usage on Supply-Side Decisions. Information and Management, 60 (2. 103757), 103757-103757. DOI.

Kazantsev N, Brewer S, Godsiff P. "The value of trust in the digital economy: The role of data sharing clubs." (2022): 144-147.

Seminars and Events: Watch the recordings

• 14/03/23 Banishing the Sunday Night Blues Launch Event: this is an ongoing research programme, sponsored by DIGIT Lab, led by Professor Ilke Inceoglu (Director of Research at the University of Exeter Business School, Exeter Centre of Leadership), commissioned by Channel 4 and delivered in close partnership with Investors in People. The research has investigated the experience and impact of the Sunday Night Blues with the aim to develop a toolkit with guidance for employees, line managers and HR Directors to help banish the Sunday Night Blues. Professor Ilke Inceoglu, Channel 4’s People Director Kirstin Furber and Investors in People CEO Paul Devoy explored the latest findings, and explained the next steps against this challenge. https://vimeo.com/808252723 

• 14/03/23 Digital Leaders, a DIGIT Lab partner, held its ‘5th Public Sector Innovation Conference’. on 14th March, chaired by our own Investigator, Professor Mark Thompson. The Shadow Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy, Alex Davies Jones MP, and the Minister of State for Digital, Paul Scully MP, both joined Mark at the Conference discussing how to embed innovation across the Public Sector and the government’s intention to prioritise upskilling to drive science and tech in the UK. To accompany the conference Mark has released a blog via Digital Leaders.

• 25/01/23 People as a route to competitive advantage in a digital manufacturing future: InterAct Co-Director, Professor Jillian MacBryde, outlines opportunities to engage with InterAct – whether you are an academic, policy maker, or a practitioner from manufacturing or a developer of digital technologies. Focusing on how we can ensure that we are thinking about people as we build a strong manufacturing future in a digital environment.

Podcasts, Webinars and Blogs

• 08/03/23 Prof. Saeema Ahmed-Kristensen: How to empower women to pursue STEM careers: this blog explores the barriers preventing women from entering the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) and looks at what can be done to encourage more women to pursue STEM education and careers, emphasising the need for diversity in teams to drive innovation and tackle societal issues.

• 09/03/23 Prof. Mark Thompson Webinar: discusses how digital projects succeeded during the Covid-19 pandemic and how this can be applied to future projects focussing on digital transformation of the NHS. He also talks about how digital technologies are crucial for this system, and assesses the potential for expanding the range of services and the functionality available on the NHS App and the scope for personalisation of care. Furthermore, he explores why previous digital health projects have failed, and how challenges can be overcome Identify other major barriers to digital transformation in the NHS.

• 26/01/23 Prof. Mark Thompson on the eDigital Podcast:Mark Thompson, Professor of Digital Economy at the University of Exeter, Strategy Director for Methods (methods.co.uk), Methods Analytics, and Core Azure, Senior Digital Advisor for the Scottish Government and Board Member of UK technology trade association TechUK, discusses the challenges and opportunities of transforming government and public sector organisations with digital technology.