Algorithms increasingly govern interactions between state and citizen and as the 'digital by default' model of government-citizen interaction spreads this will increase. This increase, combined with the value of data science and how AI and machine learning is embraced as a way to achieve efficiency and carry out public policy we need to consider how algorithms mediate real-world relationships between the state and individuals. Without confidence in the legitimacy and credibility of the algorithms the trust between government and citizens will dramatically degrade. Our research will therefore focus on algorithmic interactions between the citizen and the state and examine how we form productive and trusted relationships between those designing, deploying and using the algorithmic interactions and the communities affected by the decisions. We will examine three key public policy areas where algorithmic decision-making is used for aspects of policy deployment: refugee resettlement, welfare and healthcare provision. These three areas have been selected as they are at the forefront of services that developed as part of digital by default, where issues of cost are addressed, in part, by algorithmic decision making to evaluate legitimate service access and use. Additionally, these are areas of significant public spending where the intended users of these services are more likely feel excluded and disenfranchised from mainstream society. Our research will examine how the re-designing of the system interactions and the communication of the political and economic logic will enhance the security and well-being of individuals, protects the security of the state and increases the confidence in digital service design.

Since the early 2000s public service in the UK has undergone significant re-design and a fundamental part of the vision is to produce services used everyday by people that are safe and secure for all. Acknowledging the importance of safe and secure public services, this fellowship is specifically grounded in that area of service design and focuses on the connections between the ways that people create feelings of safety and security in their everyday lives and the protection of digital everyday services. In the design of digital services, responses to concerns related to trust, identity, privacy and security have typically been handled as part of the digital interaction between service user and service provider and yet the techniques that people use to protect personal privacy, keep information confidential, build trust and manage identity are also enmeshed in their everyday routines and practices. Whilst human factors considerations are a long-established part of this security design process, the focus is typically more on designing for user interaction and the protection of their data rather than designing more broadly for the safety and security of people in their everyday lives. As everyday services are increasingly digitised and reach into almost every aspect of a person's life, it becomes a priority to link these two aspects of protection so that everyday practices become a part of a service engagement that protects an individual's privacy, trust and identity as well as contributing to their individual security. Security in the context of everyday life is much wider than protection from technological attack; security is also the freedom to engage with these new forms of public service free from concern about threats to their personal safety, security or privacy. In this context not only must technological attack be considered but so too must service providers such as housing authorities, local councils and health care professionals being regarded as threat actors and malicious acts against individuals by family and friends through the misuse of public services be considered. When traditional service providers and members of a person's kin and friendship networks are regarded as sources of threat, people will deploy a wide range of social as well as technological practices to defend themselves. Successfully designing to support and improve these defences through social practices are as important as the design of technological defences. Outputs This fellowship will develop a framework through which researchers can co-research and co-design with communities, develop interventions and create impactful techniques that support and improve social defences. Through the research framework relationships will be built between researchers, service producer and consumer communities and practitioners from the areas of everyday security and technological security design. The fellowship programme will produce a handbook of real-world security-focused everyday service design research problems to be used as part of education programmes as well as the researcher communities. Additionally on-line engagements will be run periodically throughout the fellowship to promote broader thinking about designing to support trust, identity, privacy and security in everyday services. This fellowship programme will also produce innovative technologies. Examples of possible prototypes include: sound and tactile maps to convey the lived experience of particular communities of service consumers, mapping techniques to show networks of trust across a geographical area, skills-swap technologies to facilitate knowledge transfer about trust, identity, privacy and security in a digitally mediated society and the development of virtual reality technology to help develop understanding of what identity, trust, security and privacy conflicts mean to different communities.

The Centre for Digital Citizens (CDC) will address emerging challenges of digital citizenship, taking 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. Core to the Centre's work will be the incubation of sustainable 'Digital Social Innovations' (DSI) that will ensure digital technologies support diverse end-user communities and will have long-lasting social value and impact beyond the life of the Centre. Our technological innovations will be co-created between academic, industrial, public and third sector partners, with citizens supporting co-creation and delivery of research. Through these activities, CDC will incubate user-led social innovation and sustainable impact for the Digital Economy (DE), at scale, in ways that have previously been difficult to achieve. The CDC will build on a substantial joint legacy and critical mass of DE funded research between Newcastle and Northumbria universities, developing the trajectory of work demonstrated in our highly successful Social Inclusion for the Digital Economy (SIDE) hub, our Digital Civics Centre for Doctoral Training and our Digital Economy Research Centre (DERC). The CDC is a response to recent research that has challenged simplified notions of the smart urban environment and its inhabitants, and highlighted the risks of emerging algorithmic and automated futures. The Centre will leverage our pioneering participatory design and co-creative research, our expertise in digital participatory platforms and data-driven technologies, to deliver new kinds of innovation for the DE, that empowers citizens. The CDC will focus on four critical Citizen Challenge areas arising from our prior work: 'The Well Citizen' addresses how use of shared personal data, and publicly available large-scale data, can inform citizens' self-awareness of personal health and wellbeing, of health inequalities, and of broader environmental and community wellbeing; 'The Safe Citizen' critically examines online and offline safety, including issues around algorithmic social justice and the role of new data technologies in supporting fair, secure and equitable societies; 'The Connected Citizen' explores next-generation citizen-led digital public services, which can support and sustain civic engagement and action in communities, and engagement in wider socio-political issues through new sustainable (openly managed) digital platforms; and 'The Ageless Citizen' investigates opportunities for technology-enhanced lifelong learning and opportunities for intergenerational engagement and technologies to support growth across an entire lifecourse. CDC pilot projects will be spread across the urban, rural and costal geography of the North East of England, embedded in communities with diverse socio-economic profiles and needs. 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. The framework will use design-led 'initiation mechanisms' (e.g. participatory design workshops, hackathons, community events, citizen labs, open innovation and co-production platform experiments) to support the co-creation of research activities. Our 'Innovation Fellows' (postdoctoral researchers) will engage in a 24-month social innovation programme within the CDC. They will pilot DSI projects as part of highly interdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder teams, including academics and end-users (e.g. Community Groups, NGO's, Charities, Government, and Industry partners). The outcome of these pilots will be the development of further collaborative bids (Research Council / Innovate UK / Charity / Industry funded), venture capital pitches, spin-outs and/or social enterprises. In this way the Centre will act as a catalyst for future innovation-focused DE activity.

Technological advances in Artificial Intelligence and Big Data, have already given rise to extensive socio-economic transformation and new and emerging technologies, such as distributed ledgers and the Internet of Things, are set to further revolutionise the information and service economy, and public services. Yet, technological innovation has the potential to also dis-benefit the most vulnerable, amplify existing forms of injustice and create new forms of exclusion in socio-economic life, thus further exacerbate socio-economic inequality and social division. That the whole of society benefits from progress in the Digital Economy is national priority, both morally and economically as those who are most vulnerable have the greatest need of opportunities for socio-economic participation. Taking a Social Justice approach, this NetworkPlus focuses on how the design of new and emerging technologies in the Digital Economy, and their application, can empower, emancipate and more equitably distribute opportunities for economic development to all citizens, consumers and employees. This EPSRC NetworkPlus: Social Justice through the Digital Economy aims to bring together and resource partners from academia, industry, government and civil society to understand, explore and respond, together, to the potential of new and emerging technologies to make the UK socio-economic life fairer for all. The NetworksPlus activities will focus on three challenge areas: Algorithmic Social Justice; Digital Security for All; Fairer Futures for Businesses and Workforces. Algorithmic Social Justice examines fairness in the design and application of AI algorithms in automated and semi-automated decision-making processes. It asks how can large data sets be classified and interpreted to inform, for example, care or health interventions programs or city planning and how can AI algorithms be made less opaque and criteria used to design them fairer and transparent. Digital Security for All investigates new and better ways to model digital security that increase people's sense of agency, while meeting their security needs and protection of assets in public and commercial online service delivery. For example, this challenge area asks in what ways can online services be designed to better support people's sense of agency and trust, while assuring security in sharing personal data online. Fairer Futures for Businesses and Workforces considers how new 'sharing economy' platforms can be designed to realise more ethical business models and equal opportunities for economic development. For example, this theme asks what platforms can be designed to support peer-to-peer markets places that cater for those who have little or no assets; and what are the implications for a fair workforce representation in the digital era. The NetworkPlus will enable new ways to support effective collaborations between academic and non-academic communities and organisations through a range of activities, including a curated series on events in the three thematic priorities and an innovative and more directed process of project commissioning. The NetworkPlus will deliver curated events and activities-including symposia, hands-on workshops, theory-hacks and design and development sprints, aiming to increase capacity, upskilling and foster trans-disciplinary dialogue, knowledge exchange between academic and non-academic communities as well as. The NetworkPlus will deliver a novel curated commissioning process of activities designed to support EPS doctoral researchers and Early Career Researchers developing impactful project proposals in partnership with industry, government, third sector and civil society.