A data topography of next generation sequencing genomes

Funded by the ESRC Digital National Strategic Directorate for e-Social Science, this project is part of programme of research she is conducting with Dr Adrian Mackenzie at Lancaster University towards a sociology of Big Data. It builds on a mini research theme 'Data flows in genomic and environmental science', they conducted in 2011, funded by the e-Social Science Institute in 2011. Their methods for reassembling the social include engaging with domain and bioinformatics experts in genomics (from the public and commercial spheres), and experimenting with ways to re-analyse and visualise metadata in publicly available genomics data repositories, in collaboration with data scientists.

Socialising 'big data' : identifying the risks and vulnerabilities of data-objects

With the turn to 'big data' analytics in business, government and academia, complex issues of behaviour change, risk management and harm prevention are framed in terms of data collection, mining, aggregation, visualisation and synthesis. Through these and other methods, data-objects of various kinds are generated to exploit the hidden potential of big data to tell us more about the risks and vulnerabilities of people and things. However, at the same time these data-objects themselves introduce new risks/challenges such as privacy, security, relevance, accuracy, representativeness, and stability and make ways of knowing vulnerable to various forms of failure. The challenge of big data is not that it is big, but that it creates new vulnerabilities in part because of the tendency to overlook the social lives of data-objects, which are neither natural nor technical phenomena, but enacted and sustained through multiple and selective social practices. We seek to develop a 'social literacy' about big data rather than re-iterating the need to respond to 'the data deluge', by locating the successes and failures of the turn to data in ways that recognise their constitution in diverse social practices and specific situations.

Funded by the ESRC, this project is scheduled to run from March 2013 - March 2014. PI: Dr Evelyn Ruppert, Open University, ESRC CRESC. Co-Investigators: Prof Penny Harvey and Dr Hannah Knox, Manchester, ESRC CRESC; Dr Adrian Mackenzie, ESRC Cesagen; Prof Celia Lury, ESRC DTC Director and Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (Warwick); and Dr Ruth McNally, Anglia Ruskin University.

CaTalyST: Citizens Transforming Society (Tools for Change)

Catalyst (PI Professor Jon Whittle, Lancaster University) is a £1.9m project funded under the EPSRC Cross-Disciplinary Interfaces Programme (C-DIP) (Nov 2011- Nov 2014) As a Co-Investigator, Ruth leads a PROTEE work package. From November 2012 she will be working with Maia Galarraga to extend the use of PROTEE to the other 3 projects funded under C-DIP programme. Through this process they are developing inter-PROTEE (i-PRO), an adaptation of PROTEE for reflexive real-time learning about the dynamics of interdisciplinary innovation projects. i-PROT will provide a common platform for comparing interdisciplinary practices across the four C-DIP projects.

CURA-B (accurate business in the cure & care market project)

Part-financed by the EU's European Regional Development Fund, CURA-B (Jan 2011-Dec 2013) is a 2.7m Euro collaboration of 10 partners from France, Flanders, the UK and The Netherlands. Its goal is to strengthen their regional health economies by bridging the gap between business on the one hand, and the health and social care providers on the other. In particular, CURA-B seeks to identify and address obstacles to successful innovation of assistive technologies in telehealthcare, with a focus on supporting wellbeing and independent living for ageing populations. As CURA-B enters its implementation phase, Ruth will lead a Work Package using PROTEE to enhance reflexive learning and capture lessons learned.