Uncategorized – Horizon Centre for Doctoral Training Blog

18 October 2024

Helpful or Harmful? The Importance of Regulating Mental Health and Well-Being Platforms in the Workplace and Beyond

post by Emma Gentry (2021 cohort) and Lucy Hitcham (2023 cohort), with commentary from Dr Aislinn Gómez-Bergin

If you have been following the news over the last six months, you will have seen that one of the UK’s largest Employee Assistance Program providers (EAPs) has been in the spotlight for having potentially violated measures that aim to protect people from harm. In an ongoing investigation, Health Assured have been accused of allowing organisational representatives to listen in on ‘confidential’ counselling calls between employees and counsellors, though the CEO denies all allegations. The BBC¹^,²^,³ reports callers were not aware that non-authorised parties were listening in without their consent or knowledge– not least their employer.

Health Assured serves well-known employers in the UK, including NHS trusts, police forces, universities, and many more.

What is an Employee Assistance Program (EAP)?

EAPs typically offer a range of support services to assist employees with their mental and/or physical health. As mentioned in a CIPD report, EAPs are a popular way for employers to offer additional support to their employees in the UK. Health Assured describes the benefits of an EAP on their website:

“The purpose of an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is to boost productivity and reduce staff absences…it provides people with the tools needed to get mentally healthy. It raises awareness among peers. It even prepares for returning to work more quickly.”

On the surface, EAPs appear to be a win-win situation for employers and employees alike. But to what extent is workplace wellness about returning to work as opposed to returning to health? In his book ‘Sedated’, James Davies discusses how the individual-level view of mental distress is beneficial to modern capitalism and big business, as it supports the buying and selling of more products. Instead, he argues, we should consider the possibility that it is an understandable reaction to wider problems within our society.

It is important that we pay closer attention to the wider ecosystem that may be impacting employees – especially as organisations are increasingly drawn to ‘stand-alone’ solutions.

Potential breaches of ethical frameworks

As well as unethical ‘eavesdropping’ on confidential calls, Health Assured are accused of staffing helplines with untrained staff who were prevented from speaking out on such issues. Prior to this investigation, Health Assured sold its employee assistance services under the premise that it was the only BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy) approved provider in the UK. They used their BACP approval as a marketing technique to sell services to organisations. The BACP outlines an ethical framework for practicing counsellors and psychotherapists in the UK to protect clients in their care. Their key principles include:

- Being trustworthy: honouring the trust placed in the practitioner
- Autonomy: respect for the client’s right to be self-governing
- Beneficence: a commitment to promoting the client’s well-being
- Non-maleficence: a commitment to avoiding harm to the client
- Justice: the fair and impartial treatment of all clients and the provision of adequate services
- Self-respect: fostering the practitioner’s self-knowledge, integrity and care for the self

Health Assured were held to a certain standard which they did not meet, which has resulted in a suspension of their accreditation. Until we know the outcomes and implications of this case, we can meanwhile consider: what are the key issues here, and what might the future hold for mental health and well-being applications in the UK?

What are the benefits of EAPs and to whom?

Employee Assistance Programs are typically marketed to employers based on return on investment (ROI) metrics – that is, the extent to which investments in those services could pay off. But let’s ask: what are the benefits, and to whom? National EAPs exist first and foremost to make a profit, with many of those who access their triage services signposted to self-help services (to meet certain targets), and few accessing in-person counselling (the most costly part to the EAPs themselves). Why is this problematic at a large scale? A recent study found that those who engage in individual-level wellness schemes at work are not better off than those who do not engage. To add to the picture, there exist conflicts of interest, with mental health and well-being apps often funding research into the effectiveness of their own offerings, similar to how drug companies fund research into their products.

What are the wider risks and to whom?

Health Assured exists within the exponential growth of products and services for mental health and well-being, with vendors leveraging a wide range of marketing techniques to sell their products. Applications – beyond the scope of just the workplace – may risk selling overly simplistic views of mental distress, easily remediated through technology-based offerings. Researchers in the US mapped the APA (American Psychological Association’s) ethical framework against apps for mental health. They found evidence of users experiencing distress, feeling deceived by marketing tactics, and feeling undeserving of support across customer reviews. Another platform, BetterHelp, was recently handed a $7.8m (£6.1m) fine in the US last year after deceiving customers and selling data to third parties. While this occurred in the US, there is a growing need for regulation here in the UK as well.

But let’s consider: why might people use employer-sponsored support as opposed to going through the NHS?

If we look at the wider picture, it can take around 6 weeks, and sometimes longer, for service users to have a first talking therapy appointment. Employer-sponsored services may include shorter wait times and easier access due to the privatised nature of these services. Over the course of the pandemic, we also observed an increase in those accessing digital mental health tools more generally. So, there is a clear desire for support, which these products attempt to remediate. But how much power, choice, and control do individuals have in how they receive support?

In my research (Emma) on the ethics of workplace wellness platforms, the wider issue here could stem from an ongoing disconnect between (1) how diverse individuals experience well-being, (2) conceptualisations of well-being as communicated through design features, (3) the meaning attributed to well-being, and (4) for whom that meaning serves a purpose. I would argue there are wider issues at stake, such as how can employees meaningfully consent to workplace well-being technologies? How much power do employees have in these decisions, and to what extent might the absence of employee voice in the matter backfire on their well-being?

Working Towards a Better Future

While perhaps the most obvious solution is regulation, this is far from straightforward. Alongside the boom in digital mental health tools, there have been increased attempts in the UK to develop regulations from bodies such as the NHS, MHRA and NICE but these are not all legally binding and leave room for grey areas.

Recently, the MHRA and NICE launched a three-year project, funded by the Wellcome Trust, into the regulation and evaluation of digital mental health tools. By working with experts across industries, they aim to comprehensively evaluate the potential risks and benefits of digital mental health technologies (DMHTs) to enable access to safe and effective tools. Part of their research has shown that the public were in favour of DMHTs but either assumed such tools were already regulated or that regulation of apps was the ‘wild west’ and did not pose much risk. Despite this, many supported regulation if this did not restrict access to DMHTs. Therefore, it is important to remember that those developing, regulating and contracting DMHTs hold a significant position of power over users and should consider their duty of care, as I have found in my research (Lucy). This includes making sure that regulation and responsible research and innovation (RRI) are not just “tick box” exercises and companies like Health Assured maintain ethical standards for their services and products.

Dr Aislinn Gómez-Bergin, Transition Assistant Professor in digital mental health, discusses the wider landscape surrounding EAPs:

“The reality is that, in the UK, there is no law requiring therapists or therapy providers to adhere to any standards or qualifications. Membership bodies that do provide a set of professional standards, such as BACP, are voluntary and so limited in what they can do when those standards are breached. You might ask, what is preventing this sector from becoming a free for all? In many cases these companies may wish to adopt principles of doing good or, as with Google, “don’t be evil”. The question then is, how do they decide and who decides what is good? In the case of Health Assured, they had voluntarily signed up to BACP accreditation (although they did not adhere to their standards) and made what proved to be a rather foolish decision to encourage more business through breaking confidentiality.

Clearly, a sustainable business model is an important consideration for employers, who pay for these services, and for users who rely on their mental health support. The problem arises from not anticipating and reflecting on the unintended consequences of their actions. The impact? Avoidable damage to their reputation from a BBC exposé and potential fines if found to have breached data protection rules.

Taking a responsible research and innovation approach when considering what is good, these unintended consequences are explored and actions are taken to mitigate or prevent them; it takes a wider perspective than what a company might be tempted to take (i.e., focusing on those paying for the service and thereby creating a disconnect between consumer and user), allows for more voices to be considered, and can help a company understand not just the socio-technical consequences but also the legal.”

On a final note

Digital mental health continues to revolutionise our world today, and we are likely to see further transformation as AI becomes more sophisticated; however, it is important that we continue to embrace the potential of technology responsibly. While EAPs have been portrayed in a negative light this year, it is important to remember that many calls are handled successfully and sensitively. Utilising a Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) approach may be more about upholding the reputation of safe and effective services whilst re-establishing public trust in psychological services more broadly. The right support can be transformative for people and our society – we must work together to protect that.

Further resources

Responsible Research and Innovation Initiative

8 July 2024

From Academia to Policy: My Experience with the UKRI Internship Scheme at the Welsh Parliament

post by Charlotte Lenton (2019 cohort)

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) offer a competitive policy internship scheme for doctoral students to embed themselves in real-world policy organisations for three months. Throughout my PhD I have become increasingly interested in how to integrate policy impact into my work. In February 2023 I participated in the first ever iteration of the Get Engaged with Policy short course hosted by the Researcher Academy at the University of Nottingham. Applying to the UKRI-funded internship scheme was the logical next step for me to develop my skills in producing impactful policy-related research and gaining a better understanding of how this works in practice.

There are lots of organisations to choose from when applying to the policy internship scheme. I selected parliamentary organisations as my first choice because I wanted to be as close to the beating heart of policymaking in the UK as possible. A week after a 40-minute online interview with a panel of three policy researchers from different parliamentary organisations, I received my internship offer from Senedd Research at the Welsh Parliament (Senedd Cymru). Just seven weeks later I was walking through the doors of the Ty Hywel building for the first time to start my placement!

Charlotte Lenton outside the Senedd main entrance — (Picture of me outside the Senedd main entrance on my first day)

My first week

In my opinion, there’s no point in pretending to know things you don’t know. So, during the first meeting with my new line manager at Senedd Research, I decided to get the truth out in the open as soon as possible. I admitted to her that I had no idea what devolution was, and I knew very little about the role of the Welsh Parliament. Risky, I know. But in fact, laying my cards on the table in this way actually really helped with setting their expectations of what I knew (or in my case didn’t know) about policy and the parliament, as well as tailoring induction and training sessions to ensure I got the most out of the experience.

Over the course of the first week in the office, I had lots of induction and training sessions to learn about the role of Senedd Research within the Welsh Parliament. I also started meeting colleagues from the Environment and Transport research team which I was a part of, as well as colleagues from other parts of the service. I was slightly nervous about how I would be received in the team as I know they have quite a few interns coming and going throughout the year, but everyone was so lovely, friendly, and welcoming.

In addition to producing briefing papers, Senedd Research also supports parliamentary committees, writes short research articles for the website, and helps members to support their constituents with a whole range of issues. As a research assistant, I would be supporting the team with all of these tasks. In the spirit of starting as you mean to go on, I was allocated an enquiry to start some research at the end of my first day.

What’s free-range eggs got to do with anything?!

The role of a parliamentary researcher is super varied. One minute you could be preparing a briefing paper for a committee inquiry but then an urgent enquiry comes through from a Member of the Senedd (MS) that needs actioning so you’re suddenly working on something totally different.

Each team within Senedd Research specialise in particular policy areas. My PhD is related to rail transport, so it made perfect sense to be placed in the Environment and Transport team. While I spent a large proportion of my time working on a policy briefing about the Welsh rail network, I also supported the team with answering both transport and environment MS enquiries.

My first enquiry was related to marketing of free-range eggs. At the time this seemed very bizarre to me. Why would anyone be concerned about free-range eggs? Turns out there’s a lot going on with marketing regulations of free-range eggs in the EU, Scotland, and England. But not so much in Wales. Which is where concerns about competition and standards began to arise.

Fast-forward to week eight of my internship, I am sitting in the presence of members of the Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee conducting a general scrutiny session of the Welsh Government Minister having contributed to the briefing paper in my new specialist subject… free-range egg regulations!! I had to condense a lot of information into a maximum of one page and also write some suggested questions the committee might like to ask the Minister in relation to this. Being in the room when Llyr Gruffydd MS asked the Minister about this issue was one of the highlights of the whole internship for me. You can even watch my suggested questions being asked in session by clicking here.

(Picture of me in the committee room during the Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee General Scrutiny session in March 2024)

Getting my research on the agenda

Writing for this audience is a very important skill I developed during my time at Senedd Research. Writing in the Senedd Research ‘style’ was a particular challenge for me as sentences need to be short, direct, and to the point which is not something we do that well in academia if I’m honest. Vast quantities of information, facts, and statistics also need condensing into just one or two sentences.

From the beginning of the internship, I was encouraged by my line manager and the team leader to be proactive with seeking out topics of interest for research articles. I have research interests in transport and accessibility, so naturally I started seeking out opportunities to write about these topics.

Over the course of the twelve weeks, I managed to publish three short articles for the website as well as one long policy briefing paper which is published online and in print format. All of these have direct connections to Welsh Government policies and strategies which are helpful for Senedd members during scrutiny sessions. I am particularly proud of my article about accessible tourism in Wales as this was not necessarily on the agenda of the parliamentarians before and hadn’t really been covered in other work by the team at Senedd Research.

It’s a no-brainer if you’re interested in policy

For me, the internship has probably been the highlight of my PhD to date. Regardless of whether you’re considering a career in academia, industry, or policy I would highly recommend undertaking this internship. I learnt so many valuable skills in such a short time which will be really useful going forward.

You can read my other research articles about digital exclusion in public transport and mobility-as-a-service by clicking the links.

5 June 2024

Milestones And Memories: Reflecting on my First International Conference

Ellie Colegate from the 2021 Cohort reflects on her recent attendance at the British and Irish Law Education and Technology (BILETA) 39^th Annual Conference held between the 17^th and 19^th April 2024 at Dublin City University.

post by Ellie Colegate (2021 cohort)

Attending a conference. Scary. Attending an international conference. Super scary. Attending an international conference where you are presenting your work that you’ve entered a postgraduate prize, you’ve not been to an international conference before or flown since February of 2020. Extra super scary.

I realised on my way back from the conference that this was the first time I’d done a lot of things. Of course, all conferences are different, but I thought I’d share these in case you’re attending a conference soon and need some reassurance of what to expect.

The First Time I’ve…attended an international conference.

Confession time. I did present at this conference last year with a co-authored paper. However, this is the first time I’ve joined the community in person with my own first-authored paper and travelled to another country to present. So, it’s a first milestone to reflect on.

Now I’m not a big fan of travelling on aeroplanes. It’s not the plane itself that makes me anxious, it’s the bit before, the getting to the airport on time, making sure you have your bag/s sorted for security, finding the gate etc. It just gives me a cold chill. Luckily, my colleague and friend from another university was also attending the conference so we travelled together which helped a lot.

I also just took it one step at a time, tried not to worry too much about the steps ahead, even when my boarding pass refused to scan at every automated point at the airport, I remained calm and before I knew it, we were in Dublin!

My pastel pink suitcase was a certified way of not getting separated from my fellow travellers.

stained glass window — A stunning piece of stained glass in the building on the Dublin City University Campus where the conference was held.

Dublin was a super easy city to navigate, so once we were out of the airport and had purchased a travel card that gave us unlimited trips on public transport for the duration of our visit, the city was ours to explore. So, we went straight to the hotel to eat – travelling is exhausting and really makes you work up an appetite!

We did manage to fit in some city exploring in the evenings after panels and on the Saturday before leaving for our flight back. Something that I now will do at all conferences where I can get to see the city I went to rather than just spending two days at another university’s campus – as nice as DCU was!

a long room with giant globe — The long room at Trinty College Dublin visited as part of the Book of Kells Exhibit.

The store front of a book store — The font of the Hodges Figgis, the oldest bookstore in Dublin.

The First Time I’ve…submitted my work for a paper prize.

When the call for papers went out for this conference, so did the details of prizes for papers. I’ve never entered any of my work for a prize before, so I thought if I’m going to go in with a paper I might as well go in for it all and see what happens. The process was very straight forward, I entered my abstract via Oxford Abstracts like everyone else and then nearer the conference date and within the deadline given I sent over a copy of my full paper and informed the organisers which prize I’d like to be considered for. Then I waited. The results were revealed on the last day, last session of the conference, so plenty of time to half not think about it and half think about it!

Whilst I was unsuccessful at securing the prize on this occasion, the process of preparing the paper for submission and entering it for consideration afforded me a depth of insight to what I was presenting that I perhaps wouldn’t have had if I had just prepared slides and an abstract. The fellow attendees were really kind in their best wishes of luck when I mentioned that I was entered for the prize and asked lots of questions about my work, so despite not being successful I was still able to talk lots about my work and know that it was of value within the wide BILETA community.

The First Time I’ve…attended a conference dinner.

Questions I had before the conference dinner: What do I wear? What do I talk about? Do I talk about my work? Do I talk about everyone else’s work? How much detail do I go into? What about if I bore people? What about if I don’t know what to talk about? Can I talk about my dog? No that would be unprofessional. How professional is a conference dinner? What is for dinner? Do we all sit at a long table? Do we have allocated seats? What about if I get sat next someone I don’t know? Worse, what about if I get sat next to someone whose work I know? Do I ask them about it for my literature review? Can I do that? What about shoes?

Questions I had after dinner: where can I get more of that carrot cake?

The dessert gets an honourable mention – carrot cake and ice cream!

I was unsure about the dinner on the basis that I’d never been to one before. Turns out, it’s just like a normal dinner really, expect we had a set menu of two choices to pick from. You can sit where you like (I sat with my friend) and you don’t have to talk all about work, you can talk about other things! (I did avoid the dog chat though purely because the law and tech discussions were a bit more interesting!) The dinner gave me a great chance to talk to others in the area, our table ended up being two put together full of discussions and networking over food. I heard lots about other people’s work in the area, events they had coming up, where they had come from, it was a super wholesome discussion with like-minded people who know about similar topics and things that you do. Nothing to be scared about really!

The First Time I’ve…been recognised for my previous work (!)

This one was unexpected. As I’ve said, I attended this conference virtually last year and presented a work in progress paper, so when an attendee walked up to me and said “I remember your presentation from last year” I was a tad stunned given it’s not been published yet. After my initial shocked reaction and my excited message to my co-author that we had been remembered, I reflected on how much of a community the organisation is. It wasn’t an interrogation, it wasn’t a critique, it was a “I remember you presenting last year, it’s great to see you back.” And that was lovely.

It was also an opportunity for me to reflect on my progress in the last year and how my work has developed. Whilst the paper I was recognised for is still a work in progress, other papers and outputs are now published and been presented which felt like an age away last time I was at BILETA. I’ve learnt that if you keep going, you’ll get there with things and being recognised was a reminder for that. It also showed me that despite my own thoughts that my PhD is just me at my desk with my laptop, my work is out there and contributing which is a nice motivator going into writing my thesis up.

The First Time I’ve…met other researchers in the area whose work I am familiar.

Networking. A word that scares me to my core as I think I’m not very good at it. You can’t take a class in networking, but it turns out networking is just talking to people, and I can do that. I hadn’t made a list of people I wanted to talk to really despite it being always recommended. But I did have a rough idea of who I should probably talk to as they were either doing work interesting to me or working in a similar area to me.

So, on the coffee breaks and lunches I made a point of going up to them and introducing myself, the first couple of times it felt awkward, but I’d join conversations with others rather than marching directly up to people and sticking out my hand with a business card. The more I did it, the more conversation I had, the easier it got, and people were super kind! A few even came to my presentation after meeting me. BILETA has such a welcoming community which values its PGR members, so people are open to sitting down and having discussions with you when you’re there and connecting with you afterwards. From now on at conferences, I’m going to try and network with people more following this as it is just talking to people about your work, and we can all do that!

The First Time I’ve…sat down and thought about my trip.

It’s hard to sum up such a great trip in a blog post (if you’ve got this far, bravo!) but I think the main thing I’m taking away with me is the value of going to things in person, meeting people face to face, chatting to them and joining communities where you can. These sort of events and experiences can make what can be a lonely experience doing a PhD far from that and reminds you that you’re not just working on your own in an office somewhere and like the CDT, there are groups and organisations you can join and be a part of.

Entering a community of academics can be daunting, travelling across the world for a conference can be daunting, and presenting your work with others can also be daunting. But, as I found this year, sometimes you must go out of your comfort zone to make gains in your PhD journey. I found the BILETA community and conference to be one of great enjoyment, Dublin a stunning city, neither of which I would’ve found if I hadn’t of taken a chance on my work. To both, I’ll be back.

29 May 2024

Call for Participants – Everyday Online Harms Research Study

Are you worried about what your child sees online?

Third-year CDT student Ellie Colegate is looking for participants aged 12 to 20 for her study on the online harms bill and similar laws. Ellie wants to learn what young people find harmful in their online interactions.

You can find out more about the project and what’s involved by clicking on: Everyday Online Harms Research Study

If you know anyone who might be interested in participating, please have them contact Ellie at psxec2@exmail.nottingham.ac.uk.

27 May 202428 May 2024

Reflections on Redirection – Preparing a Conference Paper

Ellie Colegate from the 2021 Cohort reflects on her recent attendance at the Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference hosted by the University of Portsmouth in April 2024 and the process that led to her presentation.

post by Ellie Colegate (2021 cohort)

“the course of obtaining a publication never did run smooth” – William Shakespeare…if he did a PhD or worked in a research position.

I have learned over the last few years that there is no linear process to writing a research paper. When it comes down to writing a paper and disseminating your work and ideas to the world it’s you, your notes, your findings and quite often your laptop doing battle in your mind to produce something that is understandable (we hope!) and illustrates your findings or thoughts in a cohesive way.

Writing a research paper is a highly personal experience, no matter the subject of the paper. So, when a paper is rejected or receives quite a lot of feedback, it can be disheartening and can sometimes make you question if you’ve got what it takes. However, last year I learnt that rejections aren’t always rejections; sometimes, they’re redirections.

In May 2023, WhatsApp introduced an editing window for messages that enables a sender to make changes to text that previously would have been permanent and unchangeable. Advertised as great for correcting typos—we’ve all been there—or adding extra context if you’ve missed an essential emoji, the introduction of a 15-minute window was promoted as being great if you “simply change your mind.”

As someone whose research revolves around the online harms young people experience due to online content and the legal interventions introduced to reduce these, this got me thinking. What about if someone changes a harmful message already read so that it is not harmful anymore?

So, I got to work on my paper concerning ‘Edited and Disappearing Content’ – focusing on WhatsApp as the platform offering edited content and Snapchat as the platform offering content that disappears – and how, in certain circumstances, these types of content have the potential to harm young, aged users. Utilising existing reports outlining how and why young people were harmed online in the last few years, I analysed the newly introduced laws contained within the Online Safety Act 2023 alongside the ability for users to edit their content and make such disappear to illustrate how these features could cause issues for the overall aim of the law to reduce harmful interactions and content online.

From the outset, I had a journal in mind for this paper so worked to their specification. However, about a week after sending it off I received the “Thank you for your submission.” Email which continued with “unfortunately we will not be able to send your manuscript out for review.” The reason? Whilst the topic was of great interest, the journal was moving in a direction of empirical based work, of which my paper was not. But they hadn’t said “No thanks, you’re work isn’t good enough.” They’d said, “We like the ideas, we’re just going in a slightly different direction.” It was redirection, not a rejection.

A few months later I received the call for papers for the Socio-Legal Association Conference 2024 so decided to resurrect the paper sat gathering digital dust in my files and try again. The conference wanted submissions concerning how the law as written down in statutes might operate in practice and impact society and vice versa, sounded appropriate for my work. In January 2024, for the second time I hit the submit button, and to my relief, this time, it was accepted.

Fast forward to April and the paper was a part of in the IT and Cyberspace stream of the conference. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend in person in Portsmouth, however, I was still able to attend various sessions and engage with the posters. A test call at the start of each day for virtual presenters gave us an opportunity to test sound and slides which took a lot of the stress away from the actual presentation. Presenting virtually didn’t alter my experience I don’t think, the stream organisers and another panellist were also online, so the audience were equally engaged as I imagine they would’ve been if I was in person – even if I’m still slightly mortified that I caught a glance at the room at one point and realised I was projected like some sort of academic cinema!

I presented from my desk at home, but if I did go to Portsmouth, I imagine I would’ve looked something like the below:

SLSA goodie bag — An in-person attendance perk – conference goodie bag!
Credit: Alessandra Cuppini via Twitter

boats and the Victory naval ship at sunset — If I had of been there, a visit to the famous Victory naval ship would have been a must!
Credit: Brian Aitkenhead on Unsplash

The value of feedback given at conferences is something I fear is overlooked. But fresh eyes and levels of expertise can really help develop your ideas, whether you take them forward and write (or in my case adjust) a research paper or fold these ideas into your thesis and other outputs. Conferences are great for networking but equally are great for signalling to people ‘I’m working on this, I’m still figuring it out, any thoughts?’ So, I write everything down, the questions I’m asked as well as the feedback I get to fold back into the paper if it’s still a work in progress.

If it wasn’t for that first rejection, I wouldn’t have been redirected to the SLSA Conference, sure I might have had a published piece of work in the journal I’d scoped, and I probably would’ve submitted something else to the Conference for consideration. But I wouldn’t have learnt a valuable lesson I’m taking with me for the rest of my career: rejections aren’t the end of the world, and they aren’t always your fault.

The world didn’t end because a journal rejected me, my PhD didn’t fall apart before my very eyes, I was redirected to a venue from which I have made valuable connections with others and am awaiting news about a special edition. So, the work will likely still see the light of day in published form, it’s just a bit later than expected, and that’s okay for me. As Shakespeare might have said, the route to publication never is smooth.

The link to the full paper and slides can be found at:
How Edited and Disappearing Content Poses a Challenge to The UK’s Online Safety Regulations Tackling Harm Facing Young People Online

24 May 202422 May 2024

Navigating Imaginary Landscapes: My Placement with Makers of Imaginary Worlds

post by Pavlos Panagiotidis (2022 cohort)

My placement with Makers of Imaginary Worlds took place in various locations around Nottingham and remotely.

Starting date: 25/06/2023
End Date: 25/09/2023

During the past summer, I had the opportunity to participate in a three-month placement with Makers of Imaginary Worlds, a company that combines art and technology in innovative ways to create experiences for children and families. I worked on a number of projects during my time there, which helped me gain a better understanding of the practical implications of engaging audiences in mixed reality experiences, as well as the potential for research in the intersection of HCI and performance.

During my placement, I was presented with several opportunities to work on projects that involved immersive technologies, approaching audience engagement, and experimenting with prototype technologies for performance. These projects, located in various parts of Nottingham, posed diverse challenges that made the experience exciting and solidified my interest in the intersection of art and technology. This placement helped me refocus my research objectives towards areas likely to have practical impacts. These areas include developing innovative methods to assess audience engagement through computer vision and creating methodologies to evaluate the aesthetic implications of emerging technologies in performance-making.

One project I worked on involved the qualitative analysis of interviews with visitors to the “Home Zero” art installation. This installation was designed to encourage participants, mainly children and families, to envision a more sustainable future through a playful, interactive experience that used paintings from the National Gallery as a starting point. I cleaned the data and performed a preliminary analysis of interview transcripts to study how audiences interacted with and perceived the installation. My analysis showed evidence that visitors enjoyed engaging with tangible interfaces and hands-on interactions, which made the experience more engaging and effectively supported the learning process. Later that year, I co-authored a paper that transformed some preliminary insights into a study on the significance of tangibility in designing mixed reality experiences about environmental sustainability for children. I also had the opportunity to contribute to another academic paper based on “Home Zero”, which aims to provide bridges between the disciplines of theatre and computer science, exploring how these fields can converge to enhance participatory design.

An example of an interesting field observation was when a child participant in HomeZero used the “Imagination Scanner,” a device that supposedly measured the participant’s imaginative capacity. The child’s excitement was palpable when they scored higher than their parents, and the automated system rewarded them by opening the door to the next part of the installation. This moment highlighted how design and technology could invert typical familial hierarchies, providing a unique and empowering experience for the children involved.

During my placement, I also had the opportunity to engage closely with “The Delights,” an event that blended dance, sensory activities, and interactive installations to captivate its young audience at the Hoopla Festival, which was held in Nottingham’s local parks. My role involved interviewing families to document their experiences and synthesising this information into a detailed report for stakeholders such as the festival committee. This report not only showcased the high level of audience engagement but also underscored the event’s impact on community connection, child development, and the creative transformation of public spaces. I gained valuable experience in the process required by funders to collect and analyse data and report the outcomes of publicly funded events to justify subsidising an art-making company.

Evidently, the event transformed perceptions of local parks from mere recreational spaces to vibrant community hubs that facilitate child development, artistic expression, and community bonding. Interviews with parents revealed significant shifts in how these spaces are viewed and utilised, emphasising the parks’ new roles as sites for creative and interactive family engagement. Notably, parents appreciated how the event encouraged their children’s expressive skills and social interactions, with many noting increased confidence and communication in their children due to participating in the activities offered. The experience showed me the importance of audience insights in designing experiences. Understanding audience behaviour, expectations, and engagement can be crucial in creating successful events. My placement’s most technically challenging aspect was working on a computer vision-based audience participation assessing prototype. This project aimed to collect and analyse data regarding audience behaviour in interactive installations and explore the possibilities of using computer vision technology to refine interactive artistic experiences.

During my placement at MOIW, I gained a deeper understanding of how my backgrounds in theatre, physics, and computer science synergistically apply to mixed reality experiences. The diverse approaches include assessing audience engagement, designing for optimal user experiences, performing qualitative and quantitative data analysis, and exploring the potential of physical and technological prototypes in performance. While being a “jack of all trades and master of none” can pose challenges in pinpointing one’s exact skills, it also allows for unique involvement and contribution to artistic projects.

Further reflecting on interdisciplinary approaches, I recognised that while the potential for convergence between computer science and theatre is evident, the independent evolution of these disciplines has occasionally made collaboration challenging. However, this placement reinforced my belief in the value of interdisciplinary research and the potential to bridge gaps between these fields, making designing each mixed reality performance a valuable step toward this integration.

In general, my placement with Makers of Imaginary Worlds was a valuable experience that enhanced my understanding of immersive technologies and audience engagement in a real-world setting. It solidified my commitment to exploring the intersection of art and technology, paving the way for my future work in the field. Thanks to my placement, I developed a deeper understanding of the intersection of HCI and performance, both academically and practically. I learned that collaboration and interdisciplinary research are crucial in creating and studying mixed reality events. Mixed reality requires a blend of skills and knowledge, including art, technology, and design. Therefore, processes that support interdisciplinary collaboration are essential in creating innovative mixed-reality experiences.

22 May 2024

My Placement Experience: Lessons and Triumphs

post by Kuzi Makokoro (2022 cohort)

Reflecting upon my placement, a key lesson around the most important decision to make before starting a placement, was to consider the specific skills and experiences I hoped to gain. This past summer, I had the opportunity to partake in a placement with my industry partner, Co-op, which turned out to be a remarkable and invaluable experience for my professional and academic growth.

Before finalising the arrangements for the placement, including setting the dates, duration, and defining the project, a series of discussions took place between my supervisors and me. We assessed the multitude of opportunities that this placement could offer. It was during these deliberations that the versatility of a placement’s benefits became apparent to me. One option is to align the placement activities with your ongoing PhD research, ensuring that the work is not only relevant to your academic pursuits but also meets the strategic needs of the industry partner. This synergy often results in a mutually beneficial outcome that propels your research forward. Another approach could be to take a break from academic work to gain a breadth of experience in the industry, thereby expanding your professional network and engaging in projects that are also of interest to you.

Having spent the last nine years in commercial roles within various industries and capacities, I was already familiar with the dynamics of industry life. This pre-existing industry experience informed my decision to select a project that complemented my PhD research. Once I made this strategic choice, the focus shifted to pinpointing a suitable project. After numerous consultations, we collectively decided to concentrate on the Healthy Start Scheme—a government- initiative designed to aid low-income families with children under four by providing them with essential foods like milk, fruits, and vegetables. This project was not only crucial to my industry partner but also resonated personally with me, as it underscored the meaningful impact of data-driven initiatives on societal well-being.

The research objectives for the placement were ambitious: to utilise predictive analytics to predict the uptake percentage of the Healthy Start Scheme using food insecurity measures and to apply machine learning techniques to identify and understand the factors that influence uptake significantly. Working in conjunction with an industry partner meant that the practical application of my research findings could potentially aid the partner in supporting and promoting the scheme more effectively.

Entering the placement, I had certain preconceptions about how the experience would unfold, the nature of the work I would engage in, and the interactions I would have with various stakeholders. However, the practical aspects of my placement differed from my initial expectations. I quickly realised that my chosen topic necessitated a more independent working style, with periodic contributions from my industry partner rather than continuous collaboration. This shift led me to a new understanding of the role of a researcher in a consultative capacity, working in partnership with an industry entity. The experience also allowed me to lead a research project autonomously and understand the nuances of impact work. My responsibilities included initiating regular meetings with my contact at Co-op, seeking input and assistance from the wider team when needed, and managing the project’s pace and milestones.

In hindsight, although the timing of the placement originally seemed appropriate, I later reflected on whether doing it later on in my PhD program might have allowed for a richer output. The project demanded proficiency in skills that I had not yet mastered at the time, necessitating a steep and rapid learning process. This included developing an understanding of predictive analytics methodologies, acquiring proficiency in programming languages such as Python, learning about digital data collection techniques, and interpreting complex model results.

Consequently, what was initially set out to be a three-month placement evolved into a five-month project, as additional time was required for me to learn, adapt, and then effectively engage in the research. I adopted various learning strategies, such as the accelerated learning techniques outlined in Jake Knapp’s book “Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days,” which aided me in assimilating new information rapidly, trialling different approaches, and breaking down the project into smaller, more manageable tasks. Ultimately, I was able to enhance my skill set and produce actionable insights from the project, though a better approach to defining deliverables within the given timeframe would have been advantageous.

The research outcome was insightful; we identified several strong predictors within the model, such as income deprivation and language proficiency, as well as intriguing variables like household spending on fish and the caloric density of purchases. We explored various ways in which my industry partner could leverage these insights to better support the Healthy Start Scheme in communities where it is most needed.

In summary, the placement was a journey of adapting to a different work environment, setting pragmatic goals, and scaling up professionally. This learning experience has been instrumental in advancing my PhD work. It reiterates my initial emphasis on the importance of understanding what you seek to achieve from a placement. Although I had not initially set out to acquire these specific skills through the project, they have proven to be of great value as I continue with my PhD journey. Looking ahead, I am excited about the prospect of converting this project into my first published academic paper.

18 March 202418 March 2024

Fantasy Legal Exhibitions

post by Favour Borokini (2022 cohort)

Barely a day after I returned from St Andrews from the three weeks long Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, I again set out to London for the Fantasy Legal Exhibitions workshop, held on the 18th and 19th of July, 2023 and organised by Victoria Barnes and Amanda Perry-Kessaris. The workshop was funded by the Socio-Legal Studies Association and Kent Law School.

I enjoyed the premise of the workshop and was quite eager to apply for many reasons. One, I enjoy speculative fiction and fantasy especially. I greatly enjoyed Max Gladstone’s portrayal of magician-lawyers in “Three Parts Dead”, partially because it validated a lot of my feelings about the amorality of lawyers and (corporate and commercial) law firms and their often very expansive (and expensive), though invisible, influence on how society and the shaping of culture – I also really like gargoyles, the ghastly grotesques. Rare is the fantasy medium that provides a treatment of the things. It’s almost like no one knows what to do with them. So bravo, Max Gladstone, bravo!

photo of four stone gargoyles — Image credit: Unsplash

With the theme of the workshop being exhibition, I found the paradoxical invisibility of lawyers and the garish nature of legal artefacts: Lady Justicia, the ostentatiousness of lawyers and law firms, and the wig and gown all very fascinating.

Beyond fictive speculation, as part of the application, I reflected on the significance of exhibition in legal research and law and wrote about how the British Museum’s retainership of the face of Queen Idia and other artefacts during a punitive expedition in the 19th century.

The face of Queen Idia is of some significance to me, being the symbol of my alma mater, the University of Benin (UNIBEN), where I received my LLB. Though UNIBEN is a federal university (a type of public university administered by the federal government rather than a state government), it is situate within the territory of the Benin Kingdom, and bearing the face of Idia, the powerful Benin Queen mother, the University represents (as an avatar, ha!) a symbiosis of this plural sort of arrangement.

The British Library’s refusal to release Queen Idia’s mask, even on loan, for the global 1977 Festival of Arts of Culture (FESTAC ‘77), on the other hand, is emblematic of how not to support pluralism.

During the workshop, we visited various sites, including the British Museum, where each participant was invited to visit sections of interest, drawing and reflecting on how exhibits reflected law and power. There, I found myself drawn, perhaps inevitably, as I really love anime, to the Japan section high above, where I first happened upon the Kudara Kannon statue. I was drawn to it perhaps because it is literally an avatar, a living embodiment of the deity.

sketch of Kudara Kannon statue — Artistic rendition by clearly, very talented PhD student researching avatars

The Japan section held many attractions for me and my research, which explores performativity and self-presentation and I found the artefacts extremely fascinating as the numerous ways identity can and is presented held a lot of appeal for me.

Consider, for instance, the Kabuki of the Ichikawa Danjuro lineage performed by nine generations under the same stage name!

What did this say about fluid identity across different cultures?

After we left the British Museum, we went on to visit the Postal Museum. Here, I found the more archival, custodial nature of the Postal Museum a sharp contrast to the openness of the British Museum.

The Postal Museum was presented as an institution that sought to preserve history. Some of the procedures we undertook in the museum seemed quite ritualistic as well. We had to wash our hands and ensure they were dry, for instance, due to the fragility of the documents. No photographs were allowed within the archives, either.

students looking at archives at the Postal Museum — At the Postal Museum. Photo Credit: Amanda Perry-Kessaris

We had a period of reflection on the differences in exhibition styles between these two institutions and thought about the exhibition of law. How did the presentation of law by its archivists and curates discourage and encourage public perception and interaction with the institution of law?

Following this (it was a very busy day!), we went to a nearby playground and were encouraged to draw a play item and adapt its display for our own fantasy legal exhibitions.

sketch and notes by Favour — I drew a bench and a man on it under a tree with limited success.

We went on to visit Middle Temple and, finally, the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS).

I think I enjoyed Middle Temple the most, though I did get lost along the way. There were so many stairs and I don’t do well with stairs and lost most of our party, and needed rescuing by Amanda.

There’s something… well, a lot about being a lawyer is quite conservative. Something to do with the nature of law itself and the sort of people typically drawn to it, sticklers for rules and all that. There is also usually a lot of history to preserve. Law provides an in, a mirror and a vantage point to understand society. You can tell a lot about the values of a group of people by studying their law. What is praised and rewarded and what is punished.

Internally, as well, how institutions like Middle Temple, dedicated to the training and development of legal professionals, were formed is rich history too, in and of itself and being a legal practitioner provides belonging. One of my favourite and amusing parts of being a (Nigerian) lawyer is how we address ourselves, “My learned brother.” In a society as conservative as Nigeria, receiving the address of “learned brother” and “gentleman” is quite significant, if also… quite clearly problematic. One may address a female colleague as brother but still treat said “brother” in very unfraternal ways, and female lawyers struggle on many fronts in the legal profession.

In Nigeria, law students wear the same clothes and study together for five years (one year more than most Nigerian undergraduate courses), we then go on to the Nigerian Law School to qualify for the Bar for a year and then spend the rest of our lives working together, dressed the same way. It was that same feeling of camaraderie that I felt at Middle Temple. A space for my kind. It was, on the whole I think, what positive exhibitionism looks like.

At the IALS, we finally got into the more practical side of things. I must preface this by admitting to struggling with visual artistry. Words, I feel quite at home with, and I do like to go on and on with the right audience but drawing and sculpting(!). Nevertheless, she persisted. Our final activities were to design our own fantasy legal exhibits and mould a sort of frontispiece for them.

I chose an eye. An eye is just a ball with long feathers on it, isn’t it?

But more seriously, all performances and exhibitions are done under an eye or for an eye or with an eye or view to achieve some aim and objective. The evil eye, the male gaze, performativeness, theatre, not even when we are alone, especially not if you’re religious, are we ever free from some sort of appraisal.

So I made an eye.

a model of a clay eye by Favour — It has an eyepatch too!

For my fantasy legal exhibition, I decided that I wanted to create an exhibit of self-portraiture avatars with African women.

All things come to an end and so too will this piece, very shortly. A few months after the workshop, all participants were invited to create a PowerPoint presentation of their exhibition. Our presentations may be viewed at the Fantasy Legal exhibitions blog post.

My research is socio-legal. In it, I explore how people represent themselves via avatars and what the law is, in response to avatars. These days, I think about the good sides of digital technologies and performance. There’s something there that is law – our norms and cultures and practices, our desires. I plan to take Eugen Ehrlich’s megalomaniac jurisprudence bent to heart as I try to discover what avatar law is.

18 December 202320 December 2023

‘Outside the Screen’ podcast interviews Szymon Olejarnik

‘Outside the Screen’ is a podcast about research and policy developments concerning children’s interactions with screen-based content.

Szymon Olejarnik, a first-year Horizon CDT student, was interviewed by ‘Outside the Screen’ about his PhD research, which focuses on youth socialisation in a gaming context with a special focus on autism.

You can listen to the podcast episode at Loneliness, Go! and gaming on the autism spectrum (Interview starts at 16:40).

22 November 202322 November 2023

Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute 2023 Reflective Report

post by Favour Borokini (2022 cohort)

From June 25th – July 15th, 2023, I attended the 6th annual Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) Summer School at the University of St Andrews. The institute aims to foster interdisciplinary collaborations about how intelligence is expressed in humans, non-human animals, and artificial intelligence (AI), among others.

I was excited to attend the Summer Institute due to my interest in AI ethics from an African and feminist perspective. My current PhD research focuses on the potential affordances and challenges avatars pose to African women. As AI is now often implicated in the creation of digital images, I thought DISI was a great environment to share ideas and insight into how to conceptualise these challenges and opportunities.

The attendees were divided into two groups: Fellows and Storytellers. Fellows were mostly early career researchers from diverse fields, such as cognitive science, computer science, ethnography, and philosophy. The Storytellers were artists who created or told stories and had in their number an opera singer, a dancer, a weaver, a sci-fi author, a sound engineer and many others. The Storytellers brought spontaneity and life to what would surely have been a dreary three weeks with their creativity and their ability to spur unselfconscious expression in all the participants.

DISI 2023 began on a rainy evening, the first of several such rainy days, with an icebreaker designed to get Fellows and Storytellers to get to know each other. In the following days, we received a series of engaging lectures on topics as varied as brain evolution in foxes and dogs, extraterrestrial intelligence, psychosis and shared reality and the role of the arts in visualising conservation science. A typical summer school day had two ninety-minute lectures punctuated by two short recesses and a longer lunch break.

The lecture on Psychosis and Shared Reality was given by Professor Paul Fletcher, a Professor of Neuroscience from the University of Cambridge who had advised the development team of Hellblade, a multi-award-winning video game that vividly portrayed mental illness. This game put me in mind of several similar research projects ongoing at the CDT researching gaming and the mind. As a Nigerian, I reflected on the framing of psychosis and mental illness in my culture and the non-Western ways these ailments were treated and addressed. That first week, I was quite startled to find that two people I had spoken casually with at dinner and on my way to St Andrew’s were Faculty members. One of these was Dr. Zoe Sadokierski, an Associate Professor in Visual Communication at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia, who gave a riveting lecture on visualising the cultural dimensions of conservation science using participatory methods.

In that first week, we were informed that we would all be working on at least one project, two at the most (more unofficially), and there was a pitching session over the course of two afternoons. I pitched two projects: The first project was to explore the aspirations, fears and hopes of my fellow participants using the Story Completion method, a qualitative research method with roots in Psychology, in which a researcher elicits fictional narratives from their participants using a brief prompt called a stem. This method helps participants discuss sensitive, controversial subjects by constructing a story told from the point of view of a stranger.

Many of the stories were entertaining and wildly imaginative, but I was particularly struck by the recurring anxiety that in 2073, the beautiful city of St Andrews would be submerged due to rising water levels. This seemed to me a reflection of how attached we had all become to that historic city, how attachment to places and things can come to help us care more.

For my second project, I and two friends (pictured below) interviewed six of our fellow DISI attendees for a podcast titled A Primatologist, a Cognitive Scientist and a Philosopher Walk into a(n Intergalactic) Bar. The idea was to get artists and researchers to tell an ignorant but curious alien on a flying turtle planet called Edna about their work and the Earth. These interviews sparked amazingly unintended reflective conversations about the nature of life on earth, our relationship with nature and human values, such as honesty. On the final day, we put together an audio trailer for some of the most insightful parts of these conversations as our final presentation.

Photo of our Podcast team. L-R: Antoine Bertin, Favour Borokini, & Matthew Henderson. #TeamEdna

Prone to being critical, I often felt disconcerted by what I perceived as an absence of emphasis on ethics. Having worked in technology ethics and policy, I felt prodded to question the impact and source of a lot of what I heard. In a session on the invisibility of technology, I felt extremely disturbed by the idea that good technology should be invisible. In fact, I felt that invisibility, the sort of melding into perception described as embodiment by postphenomenology, spoke more to efficiency than “good”, bearing in mind use cases such as surveillance.

There were some heated conversations, too, like the one on eugenics and scientific ethics in research. The question was how members of the public were expected to trust scientists if scientists felt ethically compelled not to carry out certain types of research or to withhold sensitive findings obtained during their research.

And the session on questioning the decline in “high-risk, high-return research”, which seemed, unsurprisingly, focused on research within the sciences, led to comments on funding cuts for social sciences, arts and the humanities resulting from the characterisation of these fields as low-risk and low-return, causing me to reflect that, ironically, the precarity of the latter, qualified them more as tagged high-risk, at least, if not high-return.

But the summer school wasn’t all lectures; and there were numerous other activities, including zoo and botanical garden trips, aquarium visits, beach walks, forest bathing and salons. During one such salon, we witnessed rousing performances from the storytellers amongst us in dance, music, literature and other forms of art.

An evening beach bonfire with a Frisbee game

Favour and two “dudes” at the entrance to the Edinburgh Zoo

I also joined a late evening expedition to listen to bats, organised by Antoine, one of my co-podcast partners. There was something sacred about walking in the shoes of the bats that evening as we blindfolded ourselves and relied on our partners to lead us in the dark with only the sense of touch, stumbling, as a small river rushed past.

I think the process of actually speaking with my fellow attendees caused me to feel warm towards them and their research. I believe ethics is always subjective, and our predisposition and social contexts impact what we view as ethical. At DISI, I found that ethics can be a journey, as I discovered unethical twists in my perspective.

This thawing made me enjoy DISI more, even as I confirmed that I enjoy solitary, rarefied retreats. As the final day drew near, I felt quite connected to several people and had made a few friends, who I knew, like the rarefied air, I would miss.

The success of DISI is in no small part due to the effort of the admin team, Erica Cartmill, Jacob Foster, Kensy Cooperrider, and Amanda McAlpin-Costa. Our feedback was constantly solicited, and they were quite open about the changes from last year.

I had a secret motive for attending. My research’s central focus is no longer AI, and I felt very out of place not having something I thought was core to the theme. But a conversation with Sofiia Rappe, a postdoctoral Philosophy and Linguistics Fellow, led to the realisation that the ability and desire to shapeshift is itself a manifestation of intelligence – one modelled in many non-human animals, reflecting awareness and cognition about how one fits in and how one should or ought to navigate their physical and social environment.

I look forward to returning someday.

You can listen to our podcast here: SpaceBar_Podcast – Trailer