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

Exploring the potential of VR as a space for civic discourse

We talked with Innovation Fellow Gavin Wood about his work inside social virtual reality and the Metaverse.

21 Feb 2023

Teaching Children about Road Safety by Programming Pocket Computers

This project will help children be safer around our roads.

13 Feb 2023

Centre for Digital Citizens - December Newsletter

While our starting efforts with the CDC were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, in 2022 the Centre really began to come to life. Find out what we've been up to over the last year.

19 Jan 2023

Presenting research on ‘automated powerlessness’ at interdisciplinary international conferences

Innovation Fellow Carolina Are talks about presenting her research on 'automated powerlessness' on online platforms such as Instagram and TikTok at international conferences.

15 Dec 2022

New consultation gives customers a chance to shape the future of Metro

Tyne and Wear Metro customers are getting a new opportunity to shape the future of the service.

7 Dec 2022

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