Another year is ending at the Center for Digital Welfare, and the semester activities are slowly coming to a close. Still, the CDW is not running low on energy: On the contrary, we are stepping into 2023 with a new Head of Center with fresh ideas for research projects, working groups and center activities.

As announced broadly on our SoMe accounts in early November, we were happy to share that Irina Papazu has accepted the position as interim HoC. Irina has been part of the CDW from the very start, heading the working group The Agile State, as well as supporting the strategy development, coming up with research collaboration ideas and more. Many thanks to Irina for taking on this task in addition to her other obligations at the ITU - we look forward to the (even closer) cooperation!

Following this happy news, we regrettably have some less fortunate ones to share, too: In early November, both our advisory board member Jeannette Pols and the lead of our Digital Democratic Spaces working group Thorben Simonsen decided to step down. Jeannette supported the CDW from the very beginning with invaluable insights and good advice, and Thorben has done a great job leading the interdisciplinary group for almost two years. We remain very thankful for both their efforts! Now, this means that the two working groups Digital Democratic Spaces and Sustainable Digitalization are closing after this semester, and we are of course sad to give up on these interesting and relevant research subjects. Yet, our researchers are already forming new groups around other equally pertinent themes, and thus we expect to be able to present a couple of new working groups in the coming newsletter (February 2023).

These organizational changes aside, the fall semester has held a number of exciting CDW activities (check out the Short News below). What is more in this newsletter: Scroll down to learn more about Cancan Wang’s research on possible strategies to improve ESG data quality in Fintech startups, and the most recent publications from the CDW researchers.

We hope you will enjoy the read!
 
Sincerely,
Irina & Kitt

​​​​​​​

On 10 October, Giacomo Poderi, Jonas Fritsch and Joanna Saad-Sulonen presented their forthcoming paper titled “The Problem(s) of Caring for the Commons” at NordiCHI2022, under the section Care and Contestation. | On 13 October, Associate Professor Peter Danholt kicked off this semester’s CDW Distinguished Speakers Series with a keynote titled “The Intrusion of the Digital?” | On 27 October, the Digital Citizenship working group went out on an expedition to the Center for Digital Psychiatry to discuss digital diffractions in psychiatric care. | On 1 November, the working group The Agile State visited Ballerup Municipality for their semester expedition to study municipal digitalization up close. |
On 10-11 November, the STAY HOME project held an international conference with participants from Australia, Scandinavia, UK, US, Taiwan and more. Here,  Katja de Neergaard presented “If these walls could speak – experimenting with interdisciplinary collaboration”, showcasing her work on experimenting with art as a form of interdisciplinary research mediator. | On 11 November, Professor Paul Dourish joined us for the CDW Distinguished Speakers Series with a keynote titled “Ethics Is Not the Point (Although It’s Not a Bad Place to Start)” | On 28-29 November, the research project Welfare After Digitalization hosted a two-day international conference at the ITU. As part of the conference, the CDW supported a panel debate on digital responsibilities, a booklet launch and more. E.g. on 28 November, Christopher Gad and Jonas Fritsch pre-screened an interactive work by Mogens Jacobsen, called “Diagnosing” on the affective experience of parenting a child being diagnosed.

​​​​​​​

Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) reporting has become an important instrument for the sustainable transition of the next generation of business-startup. Nonetheless, poor ESG data quality impedes effective reporting, especially in domains such as Fintech where top-down ESG metrics may overlook pertinent material issues. – This is where the research project CAREinFintech comes into the picture!

The project is designed as a action research study, applying a design probe in the form of the notion of an ESG data commons to explore possible strategies to improve ESG data quality in Fintech startup. By reporting on the initial results of an ongoing study of a Danish Fintech startup cluster, Cancan Wang and her fellow researchers develop a practice-based approach that highlights the changing processes, teleoaffective structures, and sociomaterial dynamics of ESG data commons. 

The project findings suggest the challenge in ESG reporting for startups in the Fintech domain where top-down ESG metrics may overlook pertinent material issues, is not the lack of ESG frameworks or willingness to fulfill them. Rather, it is the lack of methods that connect the practices of business development for startups and their stakeholders such as venture capital and cluster.

CAREinFintech addresses this need by setting up a practice-based approach to ESG data commons as the first step, and then calls for future research to experiment and strengthen this approach in the sustainable transition of next generation of businesses. Accordingly, the researchers encourage future studies to investigate the emerging organizational form, process, and governance of ESG data commons that arise from such design process.

CAREinFintech is funded by Copenhagen Fintech and located at the ITU’s Department for Business IT. If you want to learn more about the project, please reach out to Associate Professor Cancan Wang via cawa@itu.dk

​​​​​​​

On 14 December, the Agile State working group will have a workshop to discuss the findings from the November expedition to Ballerup Municipality, identifying the major challenges to municipal digitalization and possible solutions to the matter. | On 26 January, the CDW will kickstart the semester with a centerwide event, incl. a conceptual workshop and an official welcome to our new Head of Center.

​​​​​​​

We are working on improving the accessibility of our newsletter. If you run into any issues while browsing the newsletter, or you have suggestions to make it more enjoyable, reach out to Kitt Plinia Nielsen at kitn@itu.dk

​​​​​​​

Cancan Wang | Irina Papazu | Kitt Plinia Nielsen

​​​​​​​