Projects at the Centre for Digital Business Research
Building Societal Resilience Against Misinformation Among Vulnerable Groups
Funded by the EPSRC
Researchers: Anita Khadka (Warwick University) (PI), Farjam Eshraghian (University of Westminster), Gareth R. Tear (Imperial College of London)
The project aims to build foundational knowledge for developing effective, culturally sensitive responses to misinformation affecting vulnerable communities. With a focus on migrants, it prioritises understanding resilience, not just resistance. It explores how individuals detect, interpret, and recover from misleading information.
AI for Inclusion: Examining the Role of GenAI in Bridging the Gender and Minority Gap in Tech
Funded by the British Academy
Researchers: Najmeh Hafezieh (Royal Holloway, University of London) (PI), Farjam Eshraghian (CI), University of Westminster, G 'Hari' Harindranath, (CI) (Royal Holloway, University of London)
This study investigates the role of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) technologies in software programming training, focusing on the social inclusion of women, minorities and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. GenAI tools such as GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT streamline software development, however, concerns exist around over-reliance, particularly for novice developers. This research aims to understand the practices surrounding GenAI use in learning to code and explore how GenAI can support underrepresented groups in learning programming. The study will adopt a multi-method approach involving topic modelling of Reddit comments related to “AI in code learning” and a grounded theory analysis of interviews and observations of the GenAI use within social enterprises’ training programmes for underrepresented groups. This research contributes to understanding how GenAI can empower a diverse workforce to advance more inclusive software solutions and will inform policy on the use of GenAI for more inclusive workforce development in the tech sector.
Digital technologies resilience framework for pandemics: Lessons learned from COVID-19
Funded by the British Academy
Researchers: Michael Dzandu (PI), Sergio de Cesare, Richard Evans (Dalhousie University, Canada), Yinshan Tang (University of Reading, UK)
This study aims to catalogue the lessons learned from the digital technology interventions deployed across multiple levels of place, scale, time, and regions in the G7 member countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. The lessons learned would then inform the development of a digital resilience framework for technological interventions in future pandemics.
Digital Twins in Construction: Towards an Ontological Model Development and Integration Framework
Funded by the Transforming Construction Network Plus (ESRC/UKRI)
Researchers: Sergio de Cesare (PI), Michael Dzandu, Rob Garvey and Peter Sharratt
Digital technologies have the potential to transform the landscape of the modern construction industry. While technological advancements, like the Internet of Things, provide the necessary digital infrastructure for enabling the physical collection of data, there currently exists limited methodological support for developing and integrating Digital Twins of built assets so that they can be easily shared across the entire industry.
This project explores the adoption of a foundational ontology-driven framework to support the development and integration of digital twin models in the construction industry across the project lifecycle and across different organisations. Ontology - a branch of philosophy which studies the kinds of things that exist and their relationships - provides the theoretical underpinning to the framework. The framework will be developed by ontologically re-engineering existing digital twin models of built assets and demonstrating improved levels of integration among them. The research will be carried out in collaboration with relevant industrial stakeholders via two workshops aimed at initially understanding the barriers to model integration and subsequently to evaluate the developed framework. This project is highly interdisciplinary and brings together theory and knowledge from philosophy, computing and construction.