The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded Data Management through e-Social Sciences (DAMES) project is investigating, as one of its four research themes, how research into depression, self-harm and suicide may be enhanced through the adoption of e-Science infrastructures and techniques. In this paper, we explore the challenges in supporting such research infrastructures and describ...

Autonomous systems are increasingly becoming part of both the cyber and physical infrastructures that sustain our daily lives. Immersing these technologies into our technical and social infrastructures has profound implications and hence requires instilling confidence in their behavior to avoid potential harm. This paper examines the characteristics of autonomous behavior in relation to ethical...

In this paper, we develop a situated and intersectional urban political economy approach to social infrastructure. This contrasts with growing body of liberal geography, which offers an optimistic account how shared spaces afford encounter connection. We present four arguments about why such outcomes cannot be assumed, are informed by case contested redevelopment in the London borough Haringey....

Social science today comprises collaborative research, which is more and more carried out on the basis of comprehensive digital infrastructures. These infrastructures aim at integrating all relevant resources for the research and providing tools to use these resources. In this paper, we present the research data life cycle in the social sciences and its challenges. We discuss prior work on inte...

The need for national information infrastructures (NII) in the world’s least developed countries (LDCs) tends to be overshadowed by the nation’s severe deficiencies in physical infrastructure. Consequently NII may be inadequately addressed by governments and supporting agencies in their plans for stimulating social growth. The example of Singapore’s TradeNet and other lesser-developed countries...

The welfare and security of modern nations rely on the continuous production and distribution of a number of essential goods (e.g. water, energy, data), and services (e.g. banking, health care), by large scale, man-made, networked systems, called infrastructures, mostly spanning long distances, and privately owned or operated. Such infrastructures are termed critical, as any incapacity or destr...