Hi all, we (@alberto @marina @amelia @hugi @martin ) had a chat on the 3rd of march and discussed the possibility for Edgeryders to open its doors to students and early career researchers who want to write their BA/MA/PhD thesis (or pieces of work) on topics of common interest and spend a short time (visiting or interim) in Bruxelles.
I just wanted to let you know that, by now, I’ve informally talked with the director of Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, Italy - Dep. of Management (Andrea Piccaluga) and he expressed interest in the proposal. This can be of interest for students in Management of Innovation (Lino Cinquini is the contact) or Environmental Control and Management (Marco Frey).
I think formal agreements are not required, however, when we’ll have a proper description of Edgeryders (I only sent them a very brief one) and a list of topics for research, we can share these. They might be useful to target interested students.
I’m waiting for news from the University of Venice -Dep. Management, following a preliminary informal inquire.
Before keep on with spreading the voice, I’ll wait for your inputs.
Hi @alberto @marina, hope you are doing well in this strange time.
During our last chat I mentioned, I got a project funded by the University of Venice which would have required Edgeryders’ technical support (with a budget of a few thousand euros) in the coming months. At the time I expressed my concerns as I foresaw I might have been required to quit the project because of a concurrent and not cumulable position in another university. I promised to keep you updated. So here I am. As I feared, I needed to resign from the University of Venice (and therefore stop the project) and accept a position at the University of Turin (which means: three jobs changes in less than a year…).
I am very sorry for the project and because I was happy to have Edgeryders engaged in it, but couldn’t avoid it. Nevertheless, don’t be afraid, you are always in my heart. In fact, I am writing right now another project proposal in which Edgeryders is expected to have a key role in SSNA (and dedicated budget). So, our collaboration is just postponed…
Thanks for the update Chiara and congrats!
Feel free to reach out again when the opportunity arises 
Hi @alberto @marina @amelia @hugi @martin
we talked about potential collaborations between Edgeryders and academia.
I am interested in finding a way to make this collaboration effective and the EU Marie-Curie RISE action could be an opportunity toward it.
The call is intended to support 4 years of collaboration and exchange between academic and non-academic partners, via short-time secondments (about a month) of the team members, while working on a common research project. This should be mutually profitable for acquiring new competencies, improving technical skills and reaching research goals.
In Jan 2021 a new call will be issued, most likely under a different label but there should not be relevant differences with old RISE calls.
About 5-6 EU partners can gather (non-EU partners can be invited subject to special conditions) and obviously their collaboration should be clearly finalised and harmonised to collaborative perform the project tasks. Specific rules about who can go where apply.
I have a draft project (@Alberto and @Marina this builds upon our joint submission for another MSCA) which could represent the standpoint for a joint application. This is about whether, how and what forms of digital innovation are able to produce social revolution (i.e. revolutionising the social production processes), instead of reinforcing neoliberal rationality of digital capitalism.
My idea is that to disentangle the contradictory character of digital social innovation/tech4good/civic tech (or however we name similar processes) we need to work with revolutionary innovators’ communities. This makes it possible to appreciate the role of supporting contexts, motivations and material practices.
From a methodological perspective we can complement our competence in digital society studies at University of Turin with Edgeryders’s semantic social network analysis and discourse analysis.
Have a few potential partners in mind (by the way, the important point is the complementary of the individual rather that of institutions, and the possibility to demonstrate that the project’s objectives are feasible thanks secondments). Edgeryders is however central, therefore, provided that I will take the lead of the proposal, I’d like to have your opinion about it.
In practical terms, I suppose I will need some consultancy about the technical tasks that can be performed in Edgeryders, and some help with filling administrative formats.
Cheers
This sounds fabulous! This language you use to describe the project you have in mind reminds me of Lynch’s paper on Contesting Digital Futures. It’s very much my area of interest and I’d be excited to be a part of it, so let me know what support you need going forward.
Thanks Amelia, very much appreciated!
Do we want to write the proposal together?
I’d very much like working with you and I’m ready to share and rework my original idea and the draft.
Nothing is decided yet, so we can design the research and assemble the network as we prefer.
Moreover, should you have in mind any call which is equally suitable for research collaboration beyond academia, I’d be happy to consider it instead of the RISE.
No tight deadline by now (for instance, RISE call should be issued in January and submission is in April).
Perhaps we can have a chat in early September (and anybody else who want to join is more than welcome)?
By the way, Lynch’s paper is great and, should you be curious about it, we recently published a cognate analysis of him on Digital Geography and Society (here).
I can help you with this, as you know 
Thanks Marina!
University of Oxford (at the Oxford Internet Institute).
Very well, I think UK institutions can still act as project partner in the new Horizon Europe calls, and we can also try with further calls once we have a project ready (e.g. the ESRC, ISFR or the Leverhulme).
I suppose you can work independently but you might want to seek the approval of your institution. I know one of your supervisor, Gillian Rose. Being the RISE call a collaborative research based on participants’ interest/competence (rather than on institutions), we can consider involving her.
Having said this, we can proceed two ways:
- we organise a first call and - should you be interested - we can elaborate together on a draft proposal according to our mutual interests/competences, and decide about further potential partners;
- I will work on the proposal alone and consider your potential interest for being included amongst the partners.
Obviously I would prefer the first option because working together on the proposal will make it stronger and it would be easier to justify the partnership. What do you think?
So, me and @amelia will have a meeting on the 28th or 29th of September (3pm CET) to discuss:
-
the formal requirements for EU MSCA (ex)RISE,
-
the scientific content (I’ll tell you about my idea in a nutshell - I’ll circulate later an extended version and we can work on it)
-
the network of partners
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the potentially alternative calls.
@marina will you join us? do you prefer 28th or 29th?
Everybody interested in joining is more than welcome.
of September or August?
September
I think for now I could join either of the days. Something might come up until then but let’s see when the date approaches