John Rooksby's Blog

Digital Economy Network Meetings

EPSRC and several of the other UK research councils have been funding “Digital Economy“ themed research for two or three years now – the general aim being to “rapidly realise the transformational impact of digital technologies on aspects of community life, cultural experiences, future society, and the economy”.  The Digital Economy theme has four sub-themes 1: Communities and culture, 2: sustainable society, 3: IT as a Utility, and 4: New economic models. 

This week I have attended two EPSRC Digital Economy workshops: one on IT as a Utility, and one on Communities and Culture.  Workshops on the two other sub-themes also took place.   

Each workshop was intended to kick off what EPSRC is calling a “Network+” – There will be four of these, each centered on one of the sub themes.  Each network+ will have about 1.5 million in funding.  They will:

  1. Support secondments/placements to/from academia
  2. Fund scoping studies (6 months, approx 50k each)
  3. Fund international engagement
  4. Fund workshops & mobility

So they do more than the standard EPSRC networks.  I think the detail of exactly what they do and how, is currently being worked out by the respective network leads.  The networks will, as far as I understand, be open to anyone who wants to join.  The intention is that funding for scoping exercises and pilots will be competitive and advertised on the EPSRC website. 

The lead of each network+ was chosen by EPSRC in advance of the workshop from a list of applicants.  Following the workshop, the lead has to write a proposal for the network to get funding.  I am told this will be more than just a formality.  I guess the review process will be to assess whether the lead has to put together a credible proposal, not whether such a network is necessary.       

There were about 40 attendees at each workshop.  I think I was the only post-doc, the majority of attendees were lectures and profs.  I met a few people who were involved in knowledge transfer, including someone from the TSB.  I hear the workshops were oversubscribed (particularly the communities workshop) and the organisers have had to be selective.  I don’t know why I was selected - I don’t think they prioritised attendees by status or success - maybe just by enthusiasm.     

At the core of the workshops were brainstorming sessions.  The first session involved having 10-minute one-on-one talks in which we were supposed to come up with a research idea, the second session involved group discussions.  This was fine – I enjoyed talking with people, and the format was very leveling; I got to speak with senior people on equal terms.  

Several things did bother me though:

  1. I think the research councils are trying to be inclusive with “Digital Economy” – it just seems to mean anything you want.  There was some vague talk of our needing “grand challenges” - but nothing specific was mentioned.  I wonder if there was ever a vision at the outset of the Digital Economy programme?  There was certainly no programmatic element to the meeting - it was just a collection of “stuff” - anything goes and everything is of equal value.  Maybe I’m silly to expect anything more than this from a brainstorming workshop.
  2. The sub-themes might be too broad for a network.  At least two things go as “IT as Utility” 1) Cloud/utility computing, and 2) the integration of IT services into peoples lives.  I think these are separate problems – we don’t need to sort out (2) to do (1) – and frankly we’ve been working on (2) in one form or another for decades. As far as “communities and culture” goes, people at least did recognise that it was a broad area.  But no one seemed prepared to question the very need for this network - everyone is happy to start filling in the details of what such a network needs to do. Can networks work if they have no real focus?  I don’t know why these sub-themes exist as they do, but unless EPSRC have been very slow, they were never created in order to be the theme for a network.  Several years later, someone has come along and said we need networks for the sub-themes - did anyone stop to question whether this is a good idea?
  3. There was no one there from industry or the public sector.  The were two or three people at the workshop involved in knowledge transfer, but beyond this the only problem holders were scientists.  In many contexts I think there is a good argument for academics to be allowed to get on without others nosing in – but I I would have thought in the Digital Economy programme we need to be talking to the people we expect to impact.  How do we know if we are addressing the right problems?  How do we know if the challenges we come up with have already been solved?  The networks do have money for placements and engagement, so again, i was probably expecting too much of a brainstorming workshop.

I’m not sure the extent to which any of these are “problems”.  I raised  these issues with some of the academics there and was told that its often good not to be too focused, and its good not to be creating consensus - we need uncertainty and ambiguity in academia if we are going to be innovative.  I had a brief chat with one of the EPSRC representatives.  He told me that it’s fine, if not a good thing that people don’t agree and don’t have a grasp of the area as a whole – the central issue is that EPSRC need to figure out what will happen beyond the Digital Economy Programme.  In two or three years they need to go to BIS with the next big idea.   Bringing people together with a network is not about bringing people together who already have the answers, but generating ideas.  Its also the case that the network leads have to now write coherent proposals - I’m sure they’ll do a good job.

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