Social Informatics @ Newcastle: The first three years.

Speaker: Mike Martin

9th July 2003 , 2.30 pm , Room 519 Claremont Tower

Abstract

The Social Informatics Group has been in informal operation for about three years now. It represents a grouping from Computer Science, the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies and the School of Management and the Centre for Health Services Research. Its attention has been focussed on the large scale complex socio-technical problems associated with the transformation of Public Services and we have been undertaking significant action research and development projects with the NHS, in Local Authorities, in Social Services Departments and with development agencies in the Region and in Europe. Some significant results are beginning to emerge about the nature of the space in which Social Scientific, Management and Architectural Discourses interact and this seminar will explore some of them. In particular, we will question what it means to be systematic in the face of complex and contested socio-political contexts such as social, health and education service. We will also explore the processes of sensemaking and organisational change in which technical systems and infrastructures are deeply and problematically implicated.