Introduction to GIRI2.0 Research

GIRI2.0’s research approach to Global Interaction is multifaceted, including a varied participation of researchers. A simplified illustration has been created for the understanding of the diversity of research-approaches to global interaction within GIRI2.0

 

Each line of research comprises current, ongoing international high-ranking research projects funded by various different sources. By building GIRI2.0 on a structure of existing projects we are able to interrelate and exchange research and research-based teaching across academic disciplines, identifying new interesting research topic as well as have an impact on ongoing research projects.

The vision of GIRI2.0 is to ensure research-based teachings at the ITU in order to cross-fertilize and bring relevance, interdisciplinary concepts and global interaction to the academia. Research needs to underpin high-level university teaching and thereby not only Master Theses can complement research activities.

GIRI2.0 is an organization based on shared and distributed activities, on the premise that we collaboratively have decided on a particular set of activities we want to conduct over the next five years together and in smaller groups – internally at the ITU or as part of our global networks. These activities all have appointed researchers (one or more), who are responsible for ensuring the planning, execution, and reporting on the activity. Examples of activities are: co-writing the Global Interaction Research Book; workshops, seminars, public events, public lectures etc.

 

Research Projects & Themes

Different research projects are part of GIRI2.0 as they each addresses different aspects of global interaction. The research projects are typically funded and done in cooperation with a range of external partners from both industry and universities. The GIRI2.0 research projects are conducted by the IT University's faculty, Post Docs and Ph.D. students. The projects draw from disciplines in computer science, engineering, sociology as well as the humanities and interaction design.

Experimental research into new type of technologies for global interaction is taking place in the different ITU labs – such as the Pervasive Interaction Technology (PIT) Laboratory. The PIT Lab hosts facilities for advanced research into tangible interaction, co-located and distributed collaboration, augmented reality, multi-modal interaction, and ubiquitous computing. We are currently also working towards establishing other lab facilities supporting global interaction research.

 

 

 

GIRI2.0’s definition of Global Interaction

We define global interaction as the situations where people interact together towards a shared endeavor and the context includes one or more globally embedded discontinuities affecting the collaborative situation. Global discontinuities might be related to differences in geography, time, national culture, organizational culture, work practices, professional disciplines, technologies, and languages. When people interact in collaborative engagement, the global element becomes pertinent when one or more discontinuities arise. It is exactly these situations where complexities emerge and new approaches, strategies, and theoretical conceptualizations are required. Our join aim is to address situations of global interaction and investigate how people can interact globally despite embedded discontinuities – and in this work identify the role of information technology. This is the type of global interaction we want to pursue in GIRI 2.0.