Horizon is investigating three broad research challenges:
The Infrastructure challenge – how should we build future Internet and “cloud” services and how do these interact with the increasingly ubiquitous computing around us, such as mobile phones, smart phones, electricity and water meters, home entertainment, etc. The aggregate data from all of these devices enables new and interesting services that also challenge us to create new mathematical tools and algorithms to extract value while respecting people’s rights and sensitivities around personal information – we seek new services that embrace “Privacy by Design”.
The Human challenge – we seek to understand and respond to the question of how people will live in a future digital economy. A key component of this challenge is an understanding of societal, ethical and social policy issues, including public perception and attitudes, and how these are affected by a ubiquitous digital economy.
The Innovation challenge – here we aim to explore the economic and business implications of our research, and to provide new models and approaches to economic analysis that will be central to the digital economy. Internet users have become not only more productive (e.g. search engines) but also more reflective (e.g. weblogs), creative (e.g. consumer video content) and connected (e.g. online social networks). We wish to understand how the role of the user as “prosumer” (both a producer and consumer of content) will impact an open ubiquitous digital economy.