Centre for Digital Social Research

DIGSUM is an interdisciplinary academic research centre for the study of the relationship between digital technology and society. The centre brings together scholars from all parts of the social sciences at Umeå University, including Sociology, Informatics, Education, Political Science, Gender Studies, Law, Economics, Psychology, and Social Work.

DIGSUM team

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DIGSUM blog

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DIGSUM journal

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Digital social research

New technologies, data and algorithms have an impact on every aspect of our social lives: Politics, education, health care, law, criminal justice, business, employment, work life, the media, and so on. In many cases, the social and cultural transformations are more far-reaching than the merely technological ones.

DIGSUM sits at the center of the challenges and opportunities that this offers for the social sciences. We believe that digital social research must be based on multidisciplinarity, alongside creative combinations of qualitative, quantitative, and computational methods.

AI and Society

As artificial intelligence systems are applied to a growing number of societal arenas, they influence significant aspects of the social lives of humans. DIGSUM works to promote and develop social science research in this area at Umeå University.

Our AI and society group operates, through a number of projects, to develop research that will help ensure that future artificial intelligence and autonomous systems will be more sensitive to the complex social domains where they are used.

Research groups

AI and society

DIGSUM's group for AI and society is focused on analysing and understanding the social implications of artificial intelligence and autonomous...

ARED - Applied Research on Education and Digitalisation

ARED has a a joint interest in the digitalisation of school, teacher education, and society

Research area: Education, Educational sciences

Design Informatics

Design Informatics is a research program at the Department of Informatics, Umeå University.

Research area: Informatics

Digital Sociology

Our Digital Sociology team within the DIGSUM Centre for Digital Social Research works with a variety of methodologies and theoretical perspectives ...

Learning and ICT

Today Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is abundantly present in Swedish society and its pedagogics. Schools, universities, police and...

Research area: Education

Mental health and the digital realm

This research group at the Department of Social Work studies different aspects of mental health and the digital realm.

Swedish Center for Digital Innovation

Within this research centre studies are conducted on digitalization and digital innovation within the industry and public sectors.