The Work and Equalities Institute at AMBS is to continue supporting a major research centre which is exploring how new digital technologies are profoundly reshaping the world of work.
The Work and Equalities Institute at AMBS is to continue supporting a major research centre which is exploring how new digital technologies are profoundly reshaping the world of work.
The ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work (Digit) has been awarded £8.3 million by the UKRI Economic and Social Research Council for a further five years to study the UK's evolving digital work ecosystem. The Centre was first established in 2020.
Professor Jill Rubery, Executive Director of the Work and Equalities Institute, said: "The decision by the ESRC to fund Digit for a second five-year term provides a major opportunity for researchers at the Work and Equalities Institute in Manchester to continue their research into important issues that are still not well understood.
"This includes how digitalisation is affecting how we work, how it may be a force for both inclusion and exclusion, and also why the rates of adoption of digitalisation vary so widely across types of firms and sectors."
Economic and social impact
As new digital technologies and AI are more widely adopted, Digit's new research programme will focus on the economic and social impacts on people's working lives. It will provide new insights into:
- The vital partnerships between government, businesses, trade unions, and civil society communities necessary to ensure that productivity gains are widely shared
- How technology is effectively regulated in the emerging digital work ecosystem.
The Centre will generate new evidence about how to support healthy working lives and improve digital skills, literacy and pay. It will also examine the consequences of digitalisation for job location and the environment.
Professor Jacqueline O'Reilly, Digit Co-Director and Professor of Comparative Human Resource Management at University of Sussex Business School, said: "Digital technologies are profoundly restructuring work, but the consequences are still uncertain. We know that employers' investment in digital technologies is poor and polarised, inequalities in skills and rewards are increasing, access to healthy working lives is unequal, and regional inequalities persist.
"The challenge is to successfully navigate this transition; building an inclusive digital work ecosystem that supports improved economic performance, well-being, and job quality."
Research themes
The new five-year research programme will focus on five themes:
- Digital ecosystem governance: How can key actors shape the evolution of an inclusive, healthy, and sustainable digital work ecosystem in the UK?
- Digital decisions and adopters: Why do firms adopt, or not, new digital technologies and what are the consequences for employment?
- Skills and rewards: What can be done to reduce the polarisation of skills, increase levels of digital literacy, and improve rewards at work?
- Healthy working lives: How does digitalisation affect a healthy work-life balance and access to work?
- Location and environment: How will digitalisation impact the location of jobs, regional development, and the environment?
The Centre will also establish a series of CoLabs as an integral part of its research. CoLabs will bring together key actors from state, business, and community sectors to develop insight into emerging challenges, against a backdrop of rapid technological change.
Digit continues to be jointly led by the University of Sussex and the University of Leeds, with partners at the University of Cambridge, University of Manchester, and Monash University in Australia, together with the Institute for the Future of Work, FutureDotNow and the Institute of Development Studies.
