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Crucible Policy

Recent years have seen a rapid growth in the capabilities of information and communication technologies. Networked services and smart devices are already changing individual lives, our economy and society. There is little doubt that they will continue to do so. The increasing pace of development is gradually removing the constraints on human technology applications. New developments present both new ways of engaging with technology and new social phenomena mediated by technology. They demand a strategic role for arts, humanities and social science (AH&SS) perspectives within technology research. This role extends beyond simply studying technology requirements and impact; it demands creative and reflective participation in the design process. Crucible aims to build a new resource of expert researchers from a broad range of disciplines who are dedicated to technology design research.

In order for this process to succeed, it is necessary to encourage dialogue between technology researchers and AH&SS researchers. But university structures and established disciplinary funding mechanisms tend to discourage radical interdisciplinary research synthesis. The Crucible strategy for dealing with this is to invoke the goal of reflective and interdisciplinary design as a meeting point for researchers. This will also be a timely development for conventional design research, moving on from an emphasis on the skilled designer at work to the whole product cycle and social context. The significance of design as a research meeting ground is already evident in the way that established academic design disciplines such as architecture have shouldered a disproportionate burden in defining the social context of technology. The most famous such case is the MIT Media Lab, founded as part of an architecture faculty, but dedicated to technology development. An increasing number of universities are adopting similar models - a recent review sponsored by the US Government is included in the book Beyond Productivity: Information Technology, Innovation, and Creativity, by Mitchell, Inouye and Blumenthal (see chapter 6).

Resources

Cambridge University has a wealth of expertise in AH&SS - to a far greater degree than is usual in universities with international prominence in technology research. However Cambridge has not been especially successful in applying this expertise to the creation of interdisciplinary research and design projects. This is despite the fact that the College system in Cambridge greatly reduces the social barriers between disciplines that are often found in other universities.

If Cambridge and other leading universities were to build initial research resources in this area, those would provide openings to a range of further funding sources. European research funding agencies increasingly recognise that individual academic disciplines can offer only partial insight into technology developments. As a result, a variety of recent initiatives have been established, including the ESRC/EPSRC LINK programme People at the Centre of Communications and IT, ESRC Knowledge, Communication and Learning programme, AHRB/EPSRC "Designing for the 21st Century", ACE/AHRB Arts and Science Research Fellowships, European Commission "Information Society Technologies", Leverhulme Trust "The Social/Economic Impact of ICT", Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science &Technology, Arts Council of England Collaborative Arts Unit and others.

Government policy directives suggest that this trend will only accelerate in future, through initiatives such as the Office for Science and Technology report on Imagination and Understanding in research and education, commissioned at the direction of the Prime Minister's office. Furthermore, private sources of research funding are increasingly emphasising interdisciplinary research. The British research operations of leading technology companies are becoming less concerned with basic technology research, and more concerned with the impact and context of technology. Crucible is not intended simply as a response to these programmes, but they emphasise the increasing demand for qualified researchers who can address these questions.

Organisational Policy

The main function of Crucible is to build a research resource appropriate to these concerns. Rather than attempting to create a whole institute from scratch, our approach has been to establish, facilitate and maintain collaboration between academics whose expertise can contribute to the goal of interdisciplinary design research. This encompasses a broad range of projects, which are being structured in accordance with the skills and experience of the researchers involved. Crucible involvement has ranged from principal investigator level (in smaller projects) to advisory input on larger pre-existing proposals.

The Crucible organisation is structured so as to require minimal funding resources beyond support of the research and education projects themselves. It is not our intention that Crucible should be, at this stage, a separate accounting centre in Cambridge holding project funds or employing research staff. The proposals we have prepared to date have been for projects that will be hosted by a grant-holder in a single Cambridge department (or another university) in the usual way, but with an interdisciplinary project team involving staff from multiple departments. The administrative overhead of proposal preparation and project management will be absorbed either by the department, or as a specifically attributed Crucible "fee" in the project budget. We hope to operate with minimal overheads and staff. Crucible staff will be mainly dedicated to proposal preparation and the management of interdisciplinary projects. Where there are existing support services within the University, we will make use of them - relying, for example, on the Research Services group for legal support in drafting research contracts.

Crucible currently reports directly to two university departments: the Computer Laboratory, and the faculty of Social & Political Sciences. Two directors have been appointed, both widely interdisciplinary, one from each department. The management model is strongly oriented toward the matrix management techniques used in project-based research consultancies, including a central network of design research "evangelists", support and professional project management staff, and common-room, library and teaching resources.

For further information, contact Alan Blackwell.