ESRC Digital Good Network

**Our vision** Digital technologies are not always good for societies. Across research, policy, industry and civil society, the question of how to build good digital societies needs urgent attention. Societies want digital technologies to work for the social good, but in research, policy and civil society, there has been far more attention to digital harms than to the digital good. To ensure that digital technologies have good outcomes for people and societies, we need to turn our attention to what the digital good should look like and how it can be achieved. To limit future harms and help ensure that digital technologies have positive outcomes, we seek to deliver an interdisciplinary, social science-led research programme centred on the urgent, neglected question of what the digital good should look like and how it can be achieved. We are funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, part of United Kingdom Research and Innovation, UKRI). **About us** The ESRC Digital Good Network is building a research community focused on what a good digital society should look like and how we get there. The network will: - bring disciplines and sectors together - support and fund interdisciplinary research, internships, fellowships - provide training, including a summer school - host events (eg talks, exhibitions, workshops, sprints) - engage policy, industry, practitioners, communities and civil society. The network was launched in November 2022 with £4 million investment from the Economic and Social Research Council and £1 million from collaborating organisations. **Our vision** The Digital Good Network is an interdisciplinary, social science-led research network centred on the urgent question of what a good digital society should look like and how we get there. **Objectives** The Digital Good Network’s objectives are: 1. To build and sustain an interdisciplinary network of diverse researchers and stakeholders that produces new insights into how to achieve the digital good and addresses urgent normative questions in digital society research. 2. To produce a step change in digital society research, so it is centred on the major societal challenges of equity, sustainability and resilience. 3. To build research capability, upskilling future digital society research leaders in methods, leadership, interdisciplinarity and stakeholder engagement, and ensuring the expansion of representation from currently underrepresented groups. 4. To engage effectively with policy, industry, practitioners, communities and civil society to co-produce research with them, align activities with their needs and ensure outputs have impacts. 5. To position UK social science as a leader in global digital society research, by influencing and informing future ESRC and UKRI policies and strategies. **Our vision** Digital technologies mediate, shape and are shaped by relationships. These include our relationships with ourselves, with intimate and institutional others, and with digital agents. The digital is also where people relate to each other. Research into digital relationships spans from the micro-behavioural to the macro-institutional, the individual to the global, the interpersonal to the cultural, the personal to terabytes of data. Disciplines differ in their view of what constitutes good digital relationships. Diverse, often contradictory conceptualisations of the good underpin digital society research. This results in a lack of consensus on how to evaluate or advocate for technologies that support the social good. Scholarship on the good draws on diverse disciplinary traditions, including philosophical reflection on the good life, and computing and design ethics. Political economy research shuns the concept of the good, preferring justice or rights as lenses through which to envisage positive social change ([Sen 2009](https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/566/56627/the-idea-of-justice/9780141037851.html)). Citizens’ understandings of whether, how, when, where and for whom digital relationships are good ([Kennedy 2018](https://philpapers.org/rec/KENLWD), [Ong 2019](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1367877919830095)) are rarely central to research, policy and practice. This limits efforts to ensure that digital technologies benefit people and societies. The Digital Good Network aims to bridge these differences. We think this is essential for advancing digital society research and improving technology design and policy. Government policies seek to mobilise digital technologies for the social good. In the UK, the [National Data Strategy](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-national-data-strategy/national-data-strategy) emphasises responsible, fair and ethical data uses; the [National AI Strategy](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-ai-strategy/national-ai-strategy-html-version) focuses on protecting publics and values; and the [Online Safety Bill](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-online-safety-bill) aims to minimise digital harms. And yet the good remains ill-defined and contested. What was deemed by UK regulators to be a good [algorithm](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-53807730) for determining exam results performed badly, with biased outcomes. A social media company’s perception of a good policy for reducing self-harm might, in fact, be more likely to increase it ([Gerrard 2018](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444818776611)). Digital-for-social-good initiatives abound, in [data](https://data-for-good.com/), [statistics](https://uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/statistics-for-the-public-good/), [government](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-for-the-public-good-government-response), [drones](https://omny.fm/shows/drones-for-good/). But because the digital good is ill-defined, their consequences can be harmful. In research, policy and civil society, there has been far more attention to digital harms than to the digital good (eg [Eubanks 2019](https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250074317/automatinginequality)). The Digital Good Network addresses the urgent question: **what should a good digital society look like and how do we get there?** This question is pressing across current and emerging technologies, including social media, MedTech, FinTech, climate tech, wearables, AI and machine learning, automation, AR and VR, IoT and beyond. To address this neglected normative question, the network brings social science together with STEM and arts and humanities, putting distinct conceptions of the digital good into interdisciplinary dialogue with one another, surfacing and bridging differences. The ultimate aim is to enable societies to realise the digital good. The Digital Good Network focuses on three societal challenges that are crucial to envisioning good relationships with and through digital technologies: equity, sustainability and resilience.