Five successful research projects have been awarded GW4 seed funding. The projects were developed during this year’s GW4 Crucible programme, with the theme ‘Our Data and Digital World – Opportunities for Transformative Interdisciplinarity’.
The GW4 Crucible leadership development programme offers early career researchers and future research leaders the opportunity to come together with their peers, from across the four GW4 institutions of Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter, to consider new interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches to research and its impact.
The collaborative and innovative projects cover a diverse range of data and digital related research topics, from AI’s use in education to surveillance practices and digital health platforms.
In total, GW4 awarded almost £23K to the following projects:
ARTiD (Artificial Intelligence for Dementia)
Led by Dr Jasmina Stevanov (University of Bristol), this groups will investigate the needs and requirements for developing a digital platform for remote early detection of dementia, by gathering interdisciplinary researchers from across the UK and Europe at a workshop to discuss the challenges and limitations of the available technologies and data sources in the intelligent diagnosis of dementia.
Charting New Frontiers: An Exploratory Expedition and Pilot Study on Chattable Virtual Avatars, Unveiling Ethical and Social Dimensions in Content Delivery
Led by Dr Yipeng Qin (Cardiff University), this pilot study will develop prototype chattable virtual avatars for use by museums and archives, to increase access to their online collections and make visiting exhibitions more interactive, engaging and enjoyable, whilst also exploring the ethical implications of using such technology.
Computing the Student: Developing participatory methods to research digital surveillance in UKHE
Led by Dr Lyndsay Grant (University of Bristol), this group will take a collaborative approach, working with students, to develop a research agenda and participatory methodology for researching surveillance in UK Higher Education, exploring how students understand and respond to HE surveillance practices.
Panic around pandemics: A case study for applying natural language processing to historical archives to identify patterns of discriminatory language
Led by Dr Tristan Cann (University of Exeter), this project seeks to explore the barriers researchers face when applying quantitative methods such as natural language processing to archival data, in order to understand the requirements needed to make existing archival texts accessible for large scale computation analysis.
Reshaping Learning in the Digital Era – How Does ChatGPT Affect Our Learning Performance, Experience and Attitude
Led by Dr Peidong Mei (University of Exeter), this project aims to investigate how ChatGPT, a prominent AI technology, impacts cognitive and social aspects of learning, and to understand the adoption process and behaviour of this technology.
This seed funding is intended as a stepping stone to large-scale collaborations and these projects all intend to deliver real world impact with the aim of becoming larger collaborative research projects in the future.
The GW4 Crucible programme for 2024 ‘Tackling health inequalities and driving social justice through radical interdisciplinarity’ is now open for applications. The deadline for expressions of interest is Wednesday 18 October 2023. The final deadline for completed applications is midday, Wednesday, 25 October 2023.
