Our research
How we work
- critical analyses of the use of data and technologies in the digital welfare state
- the social life of algorithms
- contemporary energy and carbon data landscapes
- the use of digital technologies by migrants
- digital privacy and trust
- values and ethics in connected technologies
- IT in education.
Current projects
We currently host to multiple external grants, and our work has been supported by national and international funders, such as the Danish , Nordforsk, the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program, the Innovation Foundation, Carlsberg Foundation, Velux Foundation, the Wenner Gren Foundation.
Transnational Collaboration at the Digital Frontier (DIGI-FRONT)
The project investigates knowledge travel across borders in public sector digitalization. Specifically it studies questions like how the Danish welfare state is affected when actively taking inspiration from Israel’s model for close collaboration with private sector actors, or when adopting code from England for the development of Danish citizen service portals. This is to better understand how the digitalization of the welfare state is increasingly influenced by ideas and technologies originating outside the national context. The focus of the study is on Denmark, England, and Israel.
Period: Juli 2023 - January 2026.
Members: Irina Papazu, Jessamy Perriam.
Understanding Nordic Digital Order (UNDO) - Digitalisation of Policing in the Nordics, Activism, and Surveillance Oversight
UNDO will employ a combination of research and artistic inquiry to critically investigate and relay the role and transformation of the digitalization of the police in three Nordic countries, and to mobilize for the protection of civil rights in the age of Big Data. We will conduct academic research that will examine how data driven technologies affect not only crime solving/prevention but also social inequality and civil rights.
Period: September 2023 -
Members: Vasilis Galis, Björn Karlsson, Konstantinos Floros.
DecouplingIT
The DecouplingIT Project thus approaches decoupling as a matter of how sociocultural change is generated in the spaces between IT, climate change and capitalism. We study these spaces through ethnographic explorations of how IT professionals and enterprises articulate climate change as a problem in demand of IT-generated change, and in particular how they practically deploy IT with the climate in mind.
Period: November 2022 - October 2027
Members: Steffen Dalsgaard, James Maguire, Priscila Santos da Costa, Hasib Ahsan, Vivian Wei Guo.
STAY HOME
Funded by the Carlsberg Foundation, STAY HOME is an interdisciplinary research project that documents experiences and initiatives and identify new insights and practices regarding the home during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Period: August 2020 - December 2023.
Members: Katja Pape de Neergaard.
Making Sense of Urban Air
The project investigates how new and more detailed data on air pollution from Google's Project Air View are made available in Copenhagen, and thus 'air quality’ is interpreted and defined by different actors.
Period: 2020 - September 2024.
Members: Steffen Dalsgaard, Rasmus Tyge Haarløv.
Democratic Innovations in a Green Transition (DIGT)
Democratic Innovations in a Green Transition is a collaboration with Copenhagen University looking into the impact of the Danish citizen assembly on climate change.
Period: January 2020 - December 2023.
Members: Irina Papazu, Rose Marie Højbjerg Henrichsen.
SOCCAR
The Social Life of Carbon project is a 4-year (2019-2023) research project aimed at gaining a novel understanding of the social and cultural challenges of living with ‘carbon’ in the form of emission data.
Period: 2019 - April 2024.
Members: Katinka Schyberg, Steffen Dalsgaard.
Critical Understanding of Predictive Policing (CUPP)
CUPP explores how institutional and social values are embedded in data-driven police innovations in Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Norway, Sweden and the UK.
Period: February 2021 - January 2024.
Members: Vasilis Galis, Björn Karlsson, Konstantinos Floros.
Moving Data Moving People
Investigates the lived experiences around the Chinese Social Credit System.
Period: July 2020 - September 2024.
Members: Rachel Douglas-Jones, Han Tao.
Digital Emergency Communication (DIGeMerge)
Digital Emergency Communication (DIGeMERGE) studies the use of digital communication platforms and tools in four highly digitalized European countries; Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.
Period: October 2022 - September 2025
Members: Sunniva Sandbukt
Past projects
Data as Relation
Data as Relation explored how big data is generated, negotiated and used in governance.
Period: January 2017 - November 2022.
Contact: Christopher Gad.
VIRT-EU
VIRT-EU was "Values and ethics In Responsible Techology in EUrope" – a European project funded by the Horizon 2020 program.
Period: January 2017 - December 2019.
Ecoknow
Ecoknow was a 16m DKK project from Innovation Fund Denmark which linked technology and practice of adaptive case management.
Period: 2017 - 2021.
DIGINAUTS
DIGINAUTS was on "Migrants' Digital Practices in and of the European Border Regime".
Period: 2018 - 2020.
Contact: Vasilis Galis.
SSH and Sustainable Business
The project explored the relationship between social sciences & humanities knowledge and sustainability efforts in large Danish corporations.
Period: 2021 – 2023.
Contact: Steffen Dalsgaard, Michael Hockenhull.
Rohingya mHealth
The project was on "Increasing Access to Healthcare for the Rohingya Community in the Refugee Camps in Bangladesh."
Project finish: October 2021.
Contact: Lars Rune Christensen, Hasib Ahsan.
Syrian mHealth
A one-year project aiding healthcare workers and Syrian refugees in Jordan.
Period: 2021 - 2022.
Contact: Lars Rune Christensen, Hasib Ahsan.
Welfare after Digitalization
The WAD project examined the many and varied consequences of public sector digitisation in Denmark.
Project period: 2020 - 2022.
Contact: Vasilis Galis.
Digitalisation of the Everyday during Corona
Digitalisation of the Everyday during Corona collected an ethnographic archive during the first lockdown in Denmark, focussed on disturbances of everyday life and the role of digital technologies in re-orderings hereof.
Period: April 2020 - June 2020.
Alien Energy
A project about energy futures.