Helping citizens to embrace the digital.

We take an inclusive approach to the design of new technologies that support ‘smart’, ‘data-rich’ living.

“We have been enjoying making, coding and playing with the Connected Kid’s Club at Meadow Well Connected.”

“I think I can safely say that everyone in the Men’s Group has thoroughly enjoyed working on this project.”

“Decisions on how data is collected, stored and used, are having major long-term environmental, economic, and social impacts!”

£9m

Research Centre

4

Collaborating Institutions

32K

Citizen Contacts

Our mission

The Centre for Digital Citizens (CDC) takes an inclusive, participatory approach to the design and evaluation of new technologies and services that support ‘smart; ‘data-rich' living in urban, rural and coastal communities.

We work with citizens and partners to co-design sustainable ‘Digital Social Innovations’ that ensure technologies applications support diverse communities and have long-lasting social value and impact beyond the life of the Centre.

To find out more about our aims and work, please contact Centre Manager, Effie Le Moignan: effie.le-moignan@newcastle.ac.uk

Challenge Areas

The Centre for Digital Citizens focuses on
four critical Citizen Challenge areas.

Ageless Citizen

How can technology support non-age biased learning, growth and engagement opportunities across the entire life course?

Connected Citizen

How will future citizens remain digitally connected with each other, with public services and with the socio-political issues of the day?

Safe Citizen

How can digital technologies support fair, secure and equitable societies?

Well Citizen

How can data and digital connections help us to live well?

Our Activities

Co-creation of research activities

The framework will use design-led ‘initiation mechanisms’ such as participatory design workshops, hackathons, community events, citizen labs, open innovation and co-production platform experiments to support the co-creation of research activities.

Our Activities

Engaged Citizen Commissioning Framework

Driving our programme to address these challenges is our ‘Engaged Citizen Commissioning Framework’. This framework will support citizens’ active engagement in the co-creation of research and critical inquiry.

Our Activities

Innovation Fellows

Our Innovation Fellows, postdoctoral researchers, will engage in a 24-month social innovation programme within the Centre for Digital Citizens. They will pilot Digital Social Innovation projects as part of highly interdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder teams.

Our Activities

Outcomes of the Centre for Digital Citizens

The outcome of these pilots will be the development of further collaborative bids, venture capital pitches, spin-outs and/or social enterprises. In this way the Centre will act as a catalyst for future innovation-focused Digital Economy activity.

"This Centre will allow us to explore how citizens and communities can be a part of the design of innovative technologies that work better for them, from finding ways to use shared personal data to creating citizen-led digital public services."

- David Kirk, Principal Investigator

Latest posts

Minipublics - deepening public participation in democratic decision making

We talked with Innovation Fellow Martin King about his work on minipublics - citizen assemblies, citizen juries and online deliberation.

16 Nov 2022

Research co-production with ReCoCo to understand community-based support for wellbeing

We talked with the Well Citizen Challenge Area team about their project with the Recovery College Collective (ReCoCo), developing understanding of peer support and lived experience of mental health through visual-based and co-creation research.

28 Sep 2022

Weaponised flagging against ‘grey area’ content on Tiktok and Instagram

This research investigates Instagram and TikTok’s approach to governing malicious flagging against ‘grey area’ content, or content in the public interest or covered by freedom of expression rights or that is otherwise legal offline.

8 Sep 2022

Innovation Fellow invited to speak at WFH World Congress 2022

Last month Dr Dawn Branley-Bell, one of our Centre for Digital Citizens’ Innovation Fellows, delivered an invited guest talk at the WFH (World Federation of Hemophilia) World Congress in Montreal, Canada.

21 Jul 2022

Guiding treatment for eating disorders and dementia using masticatory efficiency

Many individuals experience reduced chewing efficiency, including those with eating disorders (EDs) and dementia - partially due to muscle atrophy. Despite this, chewing efficiency is overlooked by current healthcare services.

21 Jun 2022

Making explainable AI more.. explainable! An experimental comparison of AI explanations in human decision-making

Explainable AI aims to move away from the traditional ‘black box’ approach and help users understand how a system works by providing a human-understandable explanation.

21 Jun 2022

Rage against the (technology) machine - 22 June

Centre for Digital Citizens Innovation Fellow, Dr Dawn Branley-Bell, is one of the invited panellists making up the next Turing Institute Northern Data Debate hosted at The Catalyst, Newcastle on Wednesday 22nd June 2022.

20 Jun 2022

RHED-C: Remote Healthcare for Eating Disorders during (and post) COVID-19

There is a recent push towards remote healthcare service provision, further accelerated due to the pandemic. But recent research suggests that current technologies may fall short when it comes to meeting the needs of the users.

20 Jun 2022

Developing Older Adult Cyber-Security Personas

Older adults are the fastest growing group of internet users, however, are all too often considered to be one homogenous group of vulnerable, elderly users with low digital literacy. This however does not represent the vast diversity of technology users present within the older adult population.

17 Jun 2022

Place-based approach for providing community mental wellbeing

As a result of the pandemic, there is a significant increase in mental health support for NHS services and the public sector is increasingly turning towards voluntary organisations to support care provision.

16 Jun 2022

Development of a Security Related Stress Scale

Cybersecurity is a subject often seen to be difficult by many end users. Existing research, set within a coping theory framework, has outlined how emotion influences cybersecurity behavior, with stress an important factor in security non-compliance.

14 Jun 2022