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SAMKUL-Samfunnsutviklingens kulturell

DESIGNING FREEDOM

Awarded: NOK 0.23 mill.

This aim of this project was to develop research project(s) to investigate the question of what happens to fundamental rights and freedoms (such as privacy and dignity) as these become matters of engineering and design to be built into emerging ICT infrastructures, in areas such as smart electricity and smart health. The NFR funding has been used for financing or co-financing four workshops: one in Edinburgh, one in Amsterdam, one in Bergen, and one (forthcoming) in Oslo. These meetings have generated (internationally) one application for Horizon 2020, which was funded (project CANDID), and will result in one further application for the 2018 SWAFS programme (Science with and for Society, Horizon 2020, deadline in April). It also resulted in one application for the NFR SAMKUL program that was not funded, as well as an application for the Centre for Advanced Studies (senter for grunnforskning) in Oslo. This application reached the second round of evaluations but in the end was not funded.

This application aims to develop research project(s) that will investigate the question of what happens to fundamental rights and freedoms (such as privacy and dignity) as they become matters of engineering and design to be built into emerging ICT infrastructures. The project will engage with and study such processes in two domains: (1) smart electricity meters and so-called ?smart grids?, and (2) ICTs for use in disaster management (ie. search and rescue, ?triage?). The research question will be discussed and developed into research proposals in interdisciplinary groups including practitioners from philosophy, social science, law, engineering, software design, as well as representatives of different professions using and operating the ICT systems.

Funding scheme:

SAMKUL-Samfunnsutviklingens kulturell