Outcomes

Our research objectives for this project were as follows:

1) Carry out a critical review of the TAS literature to interrogate inclusion/exclusion of disabled young people. 

2) Adopt co-production methods to explore disabled young people's perspectives on TAS.

3) Draw on the practices of makerspaces to explore the aspirations of disabled young people in relation to TAS.

4) Deliver knowledge exchange activities that communicate disabled young people’s perspectives and aspirations in relation to TAS

Project Infographic Summary 

Blog posts 

Events 

End of Project Research Celebration Event, Thursday 27th April 2023

As a team, we are working at creating an end of project research celebration event. This will be hosted and led by our co-researchers at Greenacre School. 


Possibilities of Co-production, Wednesday 26th April 2023

As a team, we are coming together as the project comes to an end to reflect on the possibilities of co-production. We will reflect on what worked well, what challenges we encountered, what makes for good interdisicplinary research, what we've learnt about TAS and importantly, what is next! We'll also be joined by Professor Geert Van Hove (University of Ghent). We'll also be launching our project animation! For more information, please visit: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/ihuman/events  


Navigating Ethical Landscapes Symposium, Wednesday 29th March 2023

Dr Lauren White (iHuman and Sheffield Methods Institute) and Dr Kirsty Liddiard will bring together two projects 'Living Life to the Fullest' and 'Reimagining TAS with DYP' to discuss co-production, disability research and participatory ethics in practice. The presentation forms part of a symposium where speakers and attendees are invited to think beyond insitutional ethics and to consider the various ethical landscapes that researchers navigate across a range of research projects. 


Sheffield Robotics (University of Sheffield), December 2022

Dr Lauren White (iHuman and School of Education) and Harry Gordon (school partner, Greenacre School) showcased our project, 'Reimagining Trustworthy Autonomous Systems with Disabled Young People' at the Sheffield Robotics Network. Our presentation was centred on showcasing the importance of co-production methods to those in the Sheffield Robotics Community. In our presentation, we talked through all of our co-produced findings and research activities and highlighted how our student co-researchers have become makers of technology through working with maker{futures} and methods of co-production. We presented alongside fellow projects in the TAS Hub Network (Dr Dave Cameron on his project 'Imagining Robotic Care' and Prof Sanja Dogramadzi on her project 'TAS Node in Resillience Project') and the presentations were followed by networking activities. 


TAS RRI event (London), October 2022

Dr Lauren White (iHuman and School of Education) attended the TAS Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Event, held in London in October 2022. The goal of the event was for the wider TAS community to learn more about TAS hub pump priming projects, with a dedicated RRI focused workshop. Lauren presented a project update on 'Reimagining Trustworthy Autonomous Systems with Disabled Young People', where equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and RRI are embedded and drive our research agenda. In our presentation, we detailed our methods of co-production with disabled young people in shaping and reimagining understandings of TAS. We documented our achievements to date and our aspirations for the future with outputs designed with EDI and RRI in mind.  



TAS Health and Social Care Conference (University of York), June 2022

Dr Lauren White (iHuman and School of Education) and Harry Gordon (school partner, Greenacre School) attended the TAS hub Health and Social Care event. This event was organised by the UKRI TAS Node in Resilience on behalf of the UKRI TAS Programme, the UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems in Health and Social Care Workshop brought together health and social care practitioners, researchers, developers, operators, end users, policy makers and regulators, to discuss challenges and solutions for the trustworthy adoption of autonomous systems in health and social care. Together, they presented our project 'Reimagining Trustworthy Autonomous Systems with Disabled Young People'. In our presentation, we outlined plans for our project workshops where we have sought to tackle questions of equality, diversity and inclusion as they relate to TAS, together. We detailed our aspirations for the project and beyond, and what we believe to be our contributions to understanding TAS in health and social care contexts. 


Animation 

Publications

Our Critical Literature Review is available to view OPEN ACCESS via the following link: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/b6vn2/ 

To cite: 

White, L., Picardi, C., Paterson, C., Towsend, B., Wang, J., Buxton, A., … Calinescu, R. (2023, March 18). Trustworthy Autonomous Systems and Disabled Young People: A Critical Literature Review. Retrieved from osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/b6vn2 

Research Informed Teaching 

Case Study of Participatory Research with Children and Young People (Undergraduate module EDU305, School of Education, University of Sheffield) 

In March 2023, Prof Dan Goodley and Dr Lauren White contributed the TAS project to the module, ‘Participatory Research with Children and Young People’. The project acted as a case study for students to critically reflect upon how principles of participatory research are embedded, the methodological and ethical issues involved in research that strives to centre and engage children and young people as active contributors in the research project and to consider critical questions around participatory research methods and design. 

Case Study of Working Beyond Disciplines (PGT module SMI613, Sheffield Methods Institute (SMI), University of Sheffield)

In March 2023, Dr Lauren White contributed to reflections from the TAS project to the module, ‘Working Beyond Disciplines’. The project acted as a case study for exploring the affordances, challenges and tensions of interdisciplinary working across the sciences. Further to this, Lauren provided reflections on the points of alignment across disciplines and tips for students who are embarking on interdisciplinary projects in the future. 

Robotic Reflections 

Image contains our project title and the subheading ‘Co-production’, an illustration of a young person with short brown hair, surrounded by a notebook with ‘research’ written on it, a red and green apple, an orange, a blue packet of crisps and a drinks can. At the bottom of the image is the UKRI TAS hub logo and a link to our website.

Disabled young people are imagined to be end users of TAS, but they are frequently excluded from design. We’re challenging this through co-production. Our research is driven by a team of co-researchers who contribute in a diversity of ways. 

Image contains our project title in blue text and the subheading 'robotic reflections'. In the centre of the image is a greyscale sketch of a robot brushing and styling a person's hair who is a wheelchair user. At the bottom of the image is the TAS hub logo and a link to our website.

When TAS and disability are considered together, it is often framed as assistive. Together, we talked about how TAS might evoke joy, laughter and fun. Through co-production, we explored how TAS might support hobbies like boxing, dancing and doing makeup!

Image contains our project title and the heading 'what is trust?' in blue text. In the centre of the image is a greyscale illustration of a dog holding a newspaper and a cat riding on top of a robot hoover. At the bottom of the image is the TAS hub logo and link to our website.

Trust is a key factor within conversations on TAS. But what does it mean? Who, or what, is involved? Through co-production, we considered trust and this big question: You can trust a dog to follow an instruction, but can you trust a cat?

Image contains our project title in blue text and the subheading 'Slow(er) robots'. The centre illustrations are grey sketched figures - one rabbit and one snail like robot. At the bottom of the image is the TAS hub logo and a link to our website.

Slow(er) robots? Robots can assist with personal care such as dressing. But to trust tech to do this, it’s important that it adapts to meet diverse bodies and minds. Robots might need to go slow(er), pace and pause to be assistive and collaborative in people’s everyday lives.

Image contains our project title in blue text and the subheading 'Meeting the designers'. The centre illustration contains a banner which reads 'Robots open day!' and three figures. A man on the left is working with tools on a robot dog in the centre and on the right hand side is a young person wearing a red coat and blue trousers holding a clip board and pencil for notes. At the bottom of the image is the TAS hub logo and a link to our website.

Throughout our workshops, we have highlighted the importance of meeting the designers and makers when it comes to trusting technology and trustworthy autonomous systems. Knowing who is working behind the scenes and being able to be part of conversations with them is important!

Image contains our project title in blue text and the subheading 'One size does not fit all'. In the centre is an illustration of a person wearing a red coat and black trousers. They are holding a smaller version of their red coat. At the bottom of the image is the TAS hub logo and a link to our website.

In our project, we explored what features may make TAS more inclusive. However, our needs, hopes and desires for TAS are all different. This means that there is no one route into accessible TAS. We must adopt collaborative ways of working in designing tech for our future.

Image contains our project title in blue text and the subheading 'Robotic assistive animals'. In the centre of the image is a person with black hair, glasses, a stripy blue and white top, blue trousers and red shoes. They are holding a lead with a robot connected and beside them. At the bottom of the image is the TAS hub logo and a link to our website.

We explored how TAS might assist in providing care and companionship, situated within established personal relationships. Elicited by our interactions with a robot, we explored an example robotic animal with sensory capabilities to offer assistance in everyday life.


Image contains our project title in blue text and the subheading 'What is TAS?'. In the centre of the image is a person with brown hair, wearing a red top reading a book with the title 'What is TAS?' on the book cover. There are drawn question marks above the person's head. At the bottom of the image is the TAS hub logo and a link to our website.

Co-defining TAS? In our project, we have sought to explore the definition of TAS together. This includes finding meaningful & accessible ways of understanding & defining TAS with everyday examples. We believe this is important for the TAS agenda to be equitable & inclusive.


Image contains our project title in blue text and the subheading 'Do you need a designer?'. In the centre of the image is a person with brown hair, blue glasses and a red coat with a hood holding a sign that reads 'call me a designer'. At the bottom of the image is the TAS hub logo and a link to our website.

In our project, we teamed up with @Maker_Futures who led important workshops in assisting our young co-researchers to move from users of technology to makers. Through the process, our co-researchers also came to see themselves as designers that can help out other teams too!

Image contains our project title in blue text and the subheading 'Makerspaces as co-production'. In the centre of the image is a purple C and O with the word production in black text in brackets. At the bottom of the image is the TAS hub logo and a link to our website.

In our project, we teamed up with @Maker_Futures who led important workshops in assisting our young co-researchers to move from users of technology to makers. Makerspaces was also another example of co-production where our young co-researchers coproduced designs, knowledge and prototypes! 

Social and Economic Impacts

Social, economic, policy and environmental impacts of those outputs

Project website
Reimagining TAS with Disabled Young People website. Available to access here 

Open Access literature review

‘Trustworthy Autonomous Systems and Disabled Young People: A Critical Literature Review’ Available via SocArxiv

Insights into co-production methodology

We have produced multi-modal, annotated, in-depth and qualitative insights into the empirical work of our project for both WP1 and WP2 - in order to share insights with researchers in the TAS field and beyond. 


Infographic

https://e.issuu.com/embed.html?d=disabled_yp_as_co-researchers_infographic&u=niftyfoxcreative


Animation 

https://vimeo.chttps://vimeo.com/818619464om/818619464


Blogs

https://tas.ac.uk/reimagining-trustworthy-autonomous-systems-with-disabled-young-people-our-project-launch/


https://tas.ac.uk/on-building-trust-co-producing-what-it-means-to-be-trustworthy/ 

External facing events

Navigating Ethical Landscapes Symposium (University of Sheffield), March 2023

Dr Lauren White (iHuman and Sheffield Methods Institute) and Dr Kirsty Liddiard brought together two projects 'Living Life to the Fullest' and 'Reimagining TAS with DYP' to discuss co-production, disability research and participatory ethics in practice. The presentation formed part of a symposium where speakers and attendees were invited to think beyond institutional ethics and to consider the various ethical landscapes that researchers navigate across a range of research projects.

Sheffield Robotics (University of Sheffield), December 2022 - Dr Lauren White and Harry Gordon gave an invited presentation on our project at the Sheffield Robotics Showcase to ~80 members of research staff across the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University. Our presentation was centred on emphasising the importance of co-production methods to those in the Sheffield Robotics community. In our presentation, we talked through all of our co-produced findings and research activities and highlighted how our student co-researchers have become makers of technology through working with Maker{futures} and methods of co-production. We presented alongside fellow projects in the TAS Hub Network (Dr Dave Cameron on his project 'Imagining Robotic Care' and Prof Sanja Dogramadzi on the 'TAS Node in Resilience' and Prof Rob Hierons on the ‘TAS node in Verifiability’). The presentations were followed by networking activities. 

TAS and DYP In Denmark, November, 2022
Dan Goodley joined a panel of speakers - including disabled activists, architects and inclusive designers - and shared a keynote lecture at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen on November 3rd). The event was hosted by Bevica Fonden and provided an opportunity for Dan to share ideas from a new project (coming in 2023) entitled ‘Disability Matters)’ - which argues that all disciplines across the human, social and natural sciences would benefit from foregrounding disability as the driving subject of inquiry.
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/ihuman/news/disability-matters-denmark

TAS RRI event (London), October 2022 - Dr Lauren White attended the TAS Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Event, held in London in October 2022. The goal of the event was for the wider TAS community to learn more about TAS hub pump priming projects, with a dedicated RRI focused workshop. Lauren presented a project update where equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and RRI are embedded and drive our research agenda. In our presentation, we detailed our methods of co-production with disabled young people in shaping and reimagining understandings of TAS. We documented our achievements to date and our aspirations for the future with outputs designed with EDI and RRI in mind.  

TAS Health and Social Care Conference (University of York), June 2022 - Dr Lauren White and Harry Gordon attended the TAS hub Health and Social Care event. This event was organised by the UKRI TAS Node in Resilience on behalf of the UKRI TAS Programme, the UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems in Health and Social Care Workshop brought together health and social care practitioners, researchers, developers, operators, end users, policy makers and regulators, to discuss challenges and solutions for the trustworthy adoption of autonomous systems in health and social care. We outlined plans for our project workshops where we have sought to tackle questions of equality, diversity and inclusion as they relate to TAS, together. We detailed our aspirations for the project and beyond, and what we believe to be our contributions to understanding TAS in health and social care contexts.

Research Informed Teaching

Case Study of Participatory Research with Children and Young People (Undergraduate module EDU305 School of Education, University of Sheffield) 

In March 2023, Prof Dan Goodley and Dr Lauren White contributed the TAS project to the module, ‘Participatory Research with Children and Young People’. The project acted as a case study for students to critically reflect upon how principles of participatory research are embedded, the methodological and ethical issues involved in research that strives to centre and engage children and young people as active contributors in the research project and to consider critical questions around participatory research methods and design. There were approx 20 students on this module. 

Case Study of Working across Disciplines (PGT module SMI613, Sheffield Methods Institute (SMI), University of Sheffield)

In March 2023, Dr Lauren White contributed to reflections from the TAS project to the module, ‘Working Across Disciplines’. The project acted as a case study for exploring the affordances, challenges and tensions of interdisciplinary working across the sciences. Further to this, Lauren provided reflections on the points of alignment across disciplines and tips for students who are embarking on interdisciplinary projects in the future. There were approx 20 students on this module.