Introducing Ethical x Digital Futures Research Lab
We are proud to present our newly founded Ethical x Digital Futures Research Lab, a research collective affiliated with Information Networks Degree Programme at Aalto University. In E-FRE, we focus on research to contribute to a more ethical, equal, and sustainable society by combining knowledge and methods from various fields of research. Our mission is to bridge in-depth understanding of human cultures and institutions with design and creation of digital technology ideas, concepts, and software, in order to frame socio-technical phenomena in transformative ways. The diverse expertise of the lab includes fields such as cultural anthropology, media and internet studies, human-computer interaction, (participatory) design, science & technology studies, critical software and algorithm studies, media education, and futures studies.
Currently, our work is centered on four research projects. In her five-year Academy fellowship project, funded by the Research Council of Finland and titled Digital Inequality in Smart Cities (DISC, 2020-2025), the head of the lab Johanna Ylipulli studies urban digitalisation and smart city development. The focus is on understanding the experiences and consequences of digital inequality on the level of everyday life, and to find potential solutions for mitigating unequal differences resulting from citizens’ varying digital capability.
Johanna co-leads two other projects as well. In Trust-M (2022-2025), the aim is to understand how trust, inclusion, and equality are present in current digital public sector services from a migrant perspective. The project intends to develop digital tools for the public service sector to make them more inclusive and accessible for all. Aalto University’s internal, Radical Creativity funded project Co-How (2022-2024) develops strategies and tools for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration. With an overarching goal of advancing societally transformative creativity, the project explores e.g. experimental and speculative collaboration methods.
Lab’s Academy Postdoctoral Researcher Minna Vigren studies imagination, agency, and power in her project Imagining Sustainable Digital Futures: Outlines for Eco-Digital Citizenship (Research Council of Finland, 2022-2025). The aim of the project is to develop methods that can foster eco-digital agency. The project consists of a set of method experiments including, for example, workshops with AI image generators and design fiction and a film club on alternative futures. The main event will be a theme week Sustainable Digital Everyday Life taking place in Turku this spring.
Our research seminar kicks off in January. We welcome researchers whose topics are linked with the aims of the Lab to join the seminar to present their work. Don’t hesitate to be in contact with us! March 20 th we will celebrate the opening of the lab with a seminar on societally conscious research and research activism. Stay tuned for more information!