About
Fields is the blog and personal site for Professor Chris Speed, Director of the Edinburgh Futures Institute at University of Edinburgh who examine subjects such as temporal design, new value models and more than human research.
Mail Chris here: c.speed@ed.ac.uk
Tweet Chris here: https://twitter.com/chrisspeed
Download CV here: https://chrisspeed.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CVSpeed23Winter-1.pdf
Chris Speed is Chair of Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh where his research focuses upon the Network Society, Digital Art and Technology, and The Internet of Things. Chris holds two Directorships at the University of Edinburgh:
2023 – Present Director, Edinburgh Futures Institute, transforming the 22,000m2 Old Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, a Florence Nightingale hospital in the centre of Edinburgh, into a world leading centre for interdisciplinary teaching, research and innovation. The purpose of the Edinburgh Futures Institute is to pursue knowledge and understanding that supports the navigation of complex futures. EFI’s distinctiveness stems from our approach to research and innovation, education and engagement – an approach that combines multi-disciplinarity with co-production. Working with industry, government and communities at home and abroad, EFI aims to build a challenge-led and data-rich portfolio of activity that has demonstrable ethical, social, cultural, economic and environmental impacts.
2018 – Present Director of Creative Informatics, one of nine UK government funded research and innovation clusters (£7.4m) that is specifically designed to support the development of new products and services for the Creative Industries. Started in 2018, this 4.5 year major programme is the only one of its kind in the UK that combines the expertise of a world leading centre for excellence in data science, with the rich cultural networks that place Edinburgh as an international destination for the creative industries.
2012-2022 Co-Director of the Institute for Design Informatics, which he has led since its inception in 2012 to become the largest, most successful research centre in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Science at the University of Edinburgh, and one of the highest growth departments in interactive media in the UK. Uniquely positioned across the Schools of Design at Edinburgh College of Art, and the world class School of Informatics at Edinburgh, the Institute is home to 80 staff across research, technical and professional services, masters and PhD programmes, and with over £21m in grant income, the Institute is at the international forefront of design for human-data interactions.
2020-2022 Director for Innovation, Edinburgh Futures Institute, based upon the momentum of the Institute for Design Informatics, and the impact across innovation for the Creative Informatics programme, Chris led the initial development of the Innovation culture within the Edinburgh Futures Institute, a unique teaching, research and innovation project (opening in 2023) that is focused upon the challenges and opportunities posed by the revolution in data, digital and artificial intelligence.
Throughout his career Chris has sustained a critical and ethical enquiry into how network technology can engage with the fields of art, design and social experience through a variety of international digital art exhibitions, funded research projects, books journals and conferences.
Chris has been involved in 48 research projects since joining the University of Edinburgh, leading on 19 projects worth a total of £13.5.mil and Co-Investigating 29 projects worth in excess of £76mil.Chris was PI for the TOTeM project investigating social memory within the ‘Internet of Things’ funded by the Digital Economy (£1.4m) and the related Research in the Wild grant: Internet of Second Hand Things (£250k); PI for three AHRC Connected Community grants under the moniker Community Hacking that explores parallels between virtual society and actual society (£120k); Co-I to the Sixth Sense Transport RCUK funded Energy project (£900k) which explored the implications for the next generation of mobile computing for dynamic personalised travel planning. He was PI to the EPSRC funded Connected High Street project (£350k) with University of Dundee and NCR, and Co-I to the AHRC funded Design in Action Knowledge Exchange Hub (£6m). He is currently PI to the EPSRC TIPS grant OxChain (£1mil), PI to the ESRC After Money project (£250k), Co-I to the £5mil PETRAS IoT Hub and Co-I to the EPSRC TIPS PACTMAN grant (£1mil). Chris is Director of the £6mil (£5.5Mil AHRC & £0.5Mil SFC) Creative Informatics R&D Partnership, one of the nine AHRC funded Creative Industries Clusters in the UK, and is Co-I to the Next Stage Digital Economy Centre DECaDE led by Surrey with the Digital Catapult. Chris was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2020.
In 2020 Chris was awarded the Chancellors Award for Research at the University of Edinburgh, the most prestigious recognition for commitment, expertise and experience in the development of research cultures and economies.
