ESRC Smart Data Research UK Strategic Advice Team
The aim of the ESRC Smart Data Research UK Strategic Advice Team is to coordinate, convene, develop and support thriving interdisciplinary digital footprint data communities, focused on addressing pressing national and international challenges. The programme will be delivered in two phases and a series of workshops will be held online.
People’s interactions with the world and each other are increasingly mediated by digital devices. These interactions create digital footprints data. This data includes:
- internet and social media
- geo-spatial
- commercial and transactional
- sensor and image
They can be harnessed to understand and address key research, business and policy questions about our increasingly digital society.
However, digital footprints data cannot currently be used to its full potential. Researchers are limited by a number of challenges including insufficient data access and infrastructure, underdeveloped methodology and theoretical development, and opaque ethical procedures.
The ESRC Smart Data Research UK Strategic Advice Team will deliver a transformational shift in the creation, access and use of digital footprint data. It will address critical gaps within the landscape and unlock the huge opportunity for digital footprint data to positively transform research and policy-making for areas of national and international interest.