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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: EP/T022574/1
Title: Future Places: A Digital Economy Centre on Understanding Place Through Pervasive Computing
Principal Investigator: Harper, Professor R
Other Investigators:
Gere, Dr CE Leslie, Professor D Sas, Professor C
Leeson, Dr AA Houben, Dr S Knowles, Dr B
Blair, Professor G Cooper OBE, Professor R Friday, Professor A
Race, Professor N Hazas, Dr M Cruickshank, Professor L
Knight, Professor J Short, Professor RD Davies, Professor N
Coulton, Professor P
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Blackpool and the Fylde College Bristol City Council Connected Places Catapult
Eden Project Halton Housing Hardy & Ellis Inventions LTD
Healthfield Residential Home Ltd Inprova Group Ltd Lancashire County Council
Lancaster City Council Local Council Roads Innovation Group Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
Matter 2 Media Micro:bit Educational Foundation Microsoft
Morecambe Bay Hospital NHS Trust NHS Liverpool CCG NHS West Lancashire CCG
Public Health England Regenda Homes RSPB
Samsung R&D Institute UK Small World Consulting Ltd University of California, Santa Cruz
University of Lisbon University of Lugano (Switz Ital USI) University of Melbourne
University of Sydney University of Technology Sydney
Department: Computing & Communications
Organisation: Lancaster University
Scheme: Standard Research
Starts: 01 October 2020 Ends: 30 September 2025 Value (£): 2,931,665
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Human-Computer Interactions Information & Knowledge Mgmt
Mobile Computing
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Environment Healthcare
Education
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Panel DatePanel NameOutcome
12 Feb 2020 EPSRC Nxt Stg DE Int 20192020 Announced
Summary on Grant Application Form
The Future Places Centre will explore how ubiquitous and pervasive technologies, the IoT, and new data science tools can let people reimagine what their future spaces might be. Today, the footprint of such systems extends well beyond the work environments where they first showed themselves and are now, quite literally, ubiquitous. Combined with advances in data science, particularly in the general area of AI, these are enabling entirely new forms of applications and expanding our understanding of how we can shape our physical spaces. The result of these trends is that the potential impact of these systems is no longer confined to work settings or the scientific imagination; it points towards all contexts in which the relationship between space and human practice might be altered through digitally-enabled comprehension of the worlds we inhabit.

Such change necessitates enriching the public imagination about what future places might be and how they might be understood. In particular, it points towards new ways of using pervasive technologies (such as the IoT), to shape healthy, sustainable living through the creation of appropriate places. To paraphrase Churchill: if he said we make our buildings, and our buildings come to shape us, the Future Places centre starts from the premise that new understanding of places (enabled by pervasive computing, data science and AI tools), can be combined with a public concern for sustainability and the environment to help shape healthier places and thus make healthier people.

It is thus the goal of the centre to reimagine and develop further Mark Weiser's original vision of ubiquitous computing. As it does this so it will cohere Lancaster's pioneering DE projects and create a world-class interdisciplinary research endeavour that binds Lancaster to the local community, to industry and government, making the North West a test-bed for what might be.

Key Findings
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Potential use in non-academic contexts
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Impacts
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Summary
Date Materialised
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Further Information:  
Organisation Website: http://www.lancs.ac.uk