Information School News

Dr Jorge Tiago Martins has been awarded £239,767 by the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) New Investigator scheme for the ‘Regional Technology Foresight’ project. The project will generate new knowledge and procedural solutions concerning the enhancement of regions’ ability to identify and exploit knowledge of technological innovations, in order to maximise competitiveness and sustainability. Focusing on the Sheffield City Region as an internationally recognised manufacturing hub, the project will be led by Dr Jorge Tiago Martins and supported by Prof Tim Vorley at Sheffield University Management School. “I am delighted to have received this ESRC New Investigators Award”, says Jorge. “Linking with industrial strategy, I believe the project will make an important contribution to better understand the processes of identifying, transferring and integrating technological innovations in UK regions”.

Last week, Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly, along with Dr Tina McGuiness from the Management School, ran an event for local schools entitled 'Could social media help you during a disaster?', as part of the 2017 ESRC Festival of Social Science. The description of the event was: Can social media help build disaster resilience in Sheffield? What role, if any, should social media users, and young people in particular, play in efforts to mitigate the effects of these incidents in their communities and help keep themselves and others safe? Recent research has suggested that social media can help emergency services during human made and natural disasters through the ‘push and pull’ of crisis information. The eyewitness perspectives shared by citizens on social media can help first responders build situational awareness and identify those areas most in need of assistance. At the same time, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter can provide emotional and material support to those affec...