About us

A word from Professor Boriana Koleva – Director of Horizon Digital Economy Research 

The UKRI funded Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute centred at the University of Nottingham brings together an interdisciplinary team with expertise from a wide variety of backgrounds including computer science, engineering, mathematics, psychology, sociology, business, social science and the arts. The team has addressed the  challenge of how to promote deep personalization, whilst providing control and privacy to citizens, even as we develop new blended experiences that converge traditional and digital artefacts, services and media. 

Established in 2009, Horizon represented a substantial investment by UKRI, the University of Nottingham and over 200 academic and industrial partners. Horizon consisted of both a Research Hub and a  Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) within the UKRI  Digital Economy programme. Both the Hub and CDT have received three rounds of direct funding, which alongside engagement in major national programmes such as the PETRAS  National Centre of Excellence for IoT systems cybersecurity and the TAS Hub , provided funding through until December 2025. 

Horizon research historically focused on the role of ‘always on, always with you’ ubiquitous computing technology, the ‘lifelong contextual footprint’ and growing public concern over  the ‘exploitation’ of personal data. We investigated socio technical developments needed and explored the private and ethical interpretation of ‘human data’ as it was captured, controlled, managed and harnessed to develop new services and products for societal benefit. Our focus evolved to consider the user-centred design and development of data-driven products in line with the idea that future products would be hybrids of both the digital and the physical.  

Physical products have become increasingly augmented with digital capabilities, from data footprints that capture their provenance to software that enables them to adapt their behaviour. Conversely, digital products are ultimately physically experienced by people in some real-world context and increasingly adapt to both. This real-world context is social with data often implicating groups, not just individuals. This blending of physical and digital has driven the merging of traditional goods, services and experiences into new forms of product.  Just as today’s social media services are co-created by consumers who provide content and data – so these will be new data-driven products. We have also witnessed a crisis of trust concerning the commercial use of personal data that threatens to undermine this vision of data-driven products. It is, and will continue to be vitally important to build trust with consumers with research going forward.