Research

Who are we?

We are an interdisciplinary research group of imec and UGent, who consists of a highly motivated team of researchers combining human and technological expertise, with a background in communication, psychology, sociology, engineering and design.

We build bridges between technology, people and society by studying their intertwined relationships to tackle the current evolution towards a sustainable digital society. We do this by looking at shifting interfaces (from analogue to digital) and studying their interactions, impact and insights.

1) Interactions

We design state-of-the art methods, using our research labs and prototypes for real-life testing, focusing on observation, co-creation and interaction design, to optimize your human-technology interactions.

2) Impact

We use theoretical frameworks from social sciences for evidence-based results, focusing on motivational, behavioral change and experience research, to maximize your effectiveness and adoption.

3) Insights

We evaluate and expose tension fields between data, privacy and ethics at governmental and industrial level, to advice your policy and decision makers.

What do we do?

We provide scientific insights on how people interact with technology today. And co-create future technologies for the people of tommorow.
Therefore we study people on three levels:

What people say

By asking opinions via online/offline surveys and interviews.

What people do

By observing behavior via mobile data logging and in the field monitoring.

What people feel

By measuring physiological data via a wide range of sensors (EEG, EMG, GSR, HR, Eye-tracking).

Research Themes

Research Projects

Below you can find our current research projects.

SolidLab Flanders- Investigating and facilitating the use of personal data pods
AI-CS BAROMETER - Monitoring the state of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Cyber Security (CS) within Flemish companies
BESOCIAL - towards a sustainable social media archiving strategy for Belgium
Cyber Dating Abuse – Towards a clear conceptualisation and examination of a heart-breaking online phenomenon
Digimeter - Measuring media/technology usage and expectations in Flanders
DISCONNECT –Digital Wellbeing in a Culture of Ubiquitous Connectivity: Towards a Dynamic Pathway Model
DITUR - Digital Twins for Upscaled Retrofits
IN2FOOD – Resolving A Societal Challenge: Interdisciplinary Approach Towards Fostering Collaborative Innovation in Food Waste Management
Knowledge Center for Data & Society - Societal acceptance of AI
Living in a digital age: Investigating the determinants and consequences of lacking ICT access and skills
Mobile DNA - Application that shows your smartphone usage
NewsDNA - Diversity in the News thourgh Algorithmization
NUDGE - NUDging consumers towards enerGy Efficiency through behavioral science
OSLO - Open Standards for Linking Organizations
SCAFFOLD - ePortfolios to scaffold workplace learning in health education
Social factors and risk behavior - Untangling the relationships between the online and offline world
The Future of Video Consumption - How does video consumption change among young media consumers
VRT Chair- Media in a Society in Transition
Multistakeholder evaluation telenet essential internet - Connecting vulnerable people to the internet and measuring their ICT skills

ExperienceDNA - User Experience Measurement in Virtual Smart Spaces
CoGhent- CoGhent explores next-generation interfaces for cultural participation and neighborhood social cohesion
Calibrain VR - How can we build individual profiles that help interpret a person's psychophysiological output with minimal to no extra calibration/baselining
DBNchallenge - The position of the Flemish data utility company in the market
Comon - Comon explores new technological solutions to wicked urban problems. It is a collective effort of Ghent University, the City of Ghent and imec to explore co-creative, experiment-driven collaborations between a wide variety of urban actors
Expertgaze - The use of modern-day technology to optimize training and on-the-job support
Smart Collaboration Assistant - Emergency training in extended reality via collaborative learning
Urbanage - Urbanage explores and experiments with new Digital Twin technology to enhance urban planning processes that improve older citizens’ quality of life
Radar-based hand-gesture recognition - Mid-air hand-gesture recognition using a 140Ghz radar sensor
ExperienceDNA: Framework and applications - Creation of a digital framework and measurement protocol to simulate and capture user interactions
Valence - VR-enabled manufacturing for ergonomics
Gemeente Zonder Gemeentehuis - Towards digital solutions for citizen participation

Below you can find a few of our recent finished projects.

EBSI - European Blockchain Service Infrastructure
Hello Jenny - City of People / Slim in de stad
Illuminate - Interactive streaming and representation for totally immersive applications
IoT Chef -IoT technology to create a connected cooking system
LBLOD - Local decisions as linked open data
MM+M - Fossil free neighborhoods Muide-Meulestede + Mariakerke
Operator Knowledge - Automated creation of digital assembly instructions by operator driven knowledge capturing
TBM Ivision - Game-based therapy for children with cerebral visual impairment
Icosy2.0 - fieldtest
Stressy - Stress in the City
Daiquiri - Data & Artificial intelligence for Quantified Reporting in sports
POPHARS – Drugs at the festivals: Perceptions of prevention-, harm reduction-, care-, and law enforcement strategies
ROLECS - Roll out of local energy communities
SenseCity - Respond faster and more accurate to calamities
VLOCA - Flemish Open City Architecture

LOREM 4.0 - Cognitive load in the workplace
Coca Cola smartlabel
TMaaS - Traffic Management as a Service
HIER-OS - Exploring the possibilities of conversational interfaces to fight social isolation among senior citizens

Publications