ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work

The ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work (Digit) is a leading international centre of excellence funded by the ESRC since 2020. It includes outstanding interdisciplinary researchers from the Universities of Sussex, Leeds, Cambridge, Manchester, and Monash (Australia), and policy partners at the Institute for the Future of Work (IFOW) and Futuredotnow, a coalition of industry leaders. Together, we examine the evolution and governance of the digital work ecosystems shaping the digital transformation of work. 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, citizens' well-being, and job quality. We focus on five core research questions: 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? To answer these questions, we work in active collaboration with key ecosystem actors from government, business, trade unions and civil society communities. Technological innovation supporting healthy and productive working lives requires a synergy of vision and action from these key actors. However, knowledge of what an effective digital work ecosystem currently looks like is limited and analysis remains embryonic. The Digit Centre addresses this challenge head-on. The aim of researchers is to thoroughly examine the challenges of navigating a more inclusive and synergised 'digital work ecosystem' in the UK. This aim is achieved through six core objectives to: Generate new knowledge through an extensive research programme; Publish co-produced research with our CoLab partners; Develop a Data and Policy Observatory for knowledge exchange; Provide agile and explorative funding through the Marie Jahoda Innovation Fund; Create capacity building, training and support for EDI-aware inclusive research leaders of the future through the MECR's Forum; Embed learning from research for future generations in UG and PG qualifications. Our research will benefit users in business, policy and community circuits. An active programme of co-produced research and knowledge exchange is facilitated through our Co-Labs by academic researchers and our partners at IFOW and Futuredotnow. This will improve our understanding of how to: develop more inclusive governance structures that prevent fragmentation of diverse stakeholder perspectives; identify the key benefits of digital transformation for business practice and job quality; target policy initiatives to improve the quality and equity of digital literacy skills associated with improved rewards at work; utilise digital transformation to increase well-being at work and access to new job opportunities; build a robust climate-neutral digital infrastructure that supports an even distribution of jobs in the UK. This will contribute to the development of a less fragmented, more inclusive digital work ecosystem.