On May 19th to 21st, the Lab attended the fourth annual Digital Footprints Conference, this year held in York.
For the first time, the conference took place over three days, incorporating a full day organised and run by Smart Data UK. SDR UK presented their range of data services, including progress, milestones, and plans for future data collections.
The conference itself kicked off with welcoming words from Anya Skatova and Michelle Morris, conference co-founders and organisers.
The conference incorporated an exciting range of flash talks, poster presentations, workshops, and even an academic speed dating session. We heard about research from a huge variety of topics, including keynotes on the topics of gambling and its harms, the impacts of food advertising on diet, and the use of Strava data for urban planning.
Lab members also contributed to the conference.
Romana hosted two workshops – one on tools for analysing shopping data, and the other focused on public engagement in Digital Footprints research. The workshops were well attended and brought up some insightful discussions. A particular highlight was hearing some examples of successful public engagement from speakers at PEDRI, SDR UK and The PSC.
Neo presented a poster on using shopping data to better understand food inequality, in an ongoing project with the University of Nottingham.
The conference was very well attended, welcoming around 150 delegates – the largest number to date. Excitingly, next years event will be hosted back in Bristol, so watch this space for more information to come later in the year!