Exploring not-for-profit oriented Sharing Economy schemes

The growth of the sharing economy (SE) in the recent years, has been attracting more and more attention among entrepreneurs that seek to develop innovative and profitable SE ideas; local and national states that look for ways to regulate the rampant, in cases, SE activity; non-profit organizations, self-organized communities and social movements that perform sharing as a counter-act to the environmental crisis, a way to deal with welfare cuts and reinvigorate community. Accordingly, HCI researchers have shown extended interest in the SE, and more specifically in users demographics and motivations, designing SE systems, offering policy proposals and criticizing SE platforms whilst mainly focusing on SE platforms used by the SE giants (e.g. Uber, AirBnB, BlaBlaCar). In the latter, bespokely designed digital platforms are employed to facilitate sharers' networking. In those schemes sharing is performed in a commercial way; the owners of the platforms get a monetary commission every time a transaction occurs and their users can profitably share with others different kinds of resources (e.g. a room, an empty seat in a vehicle). Sharing as it manifests through mainstream SE platforms is moving towards becoming synonymous to renting and has been characterized as above all business. Thus the societal meanings, social imaginaries and enactment of sharing are affected

In this regard, this PhD intends to explore not-for-profit oriented SE schemes of which participants are not primarily motivated by financial gains. The focus of this PhD is on less statutory and/or impromptu SE schemes that are more community driven when cross-examined with the abovementioned SE giants' projects. As such initiatives remain underexplored by the HCI community this research, departing from Gibson-Graham's concept of 'diverse economies' which calls for a pluralistic understanding of economic relations and from Foucauldian theories focusing on words and definitions as actors of power, this PhD intends to make not-for-profit oriented SE schemes intelligible and visible while contributing to their sustenance and proliferation (scaling out). Solidarity HCI and queer HCI approaches and theories are also to be explored within this PhD.

The two case studies already identified, focus on intimate forms of sharing: ride-sharing and short-term accommodation. The first case study (Share the ride ;), Greece) to be explored is an impromptu and not-for-profit ride-sharing scheme that runs within a Facebook group, the members of which have been appropriating Facebook affordances in novel ways. The second identified case (Bothies, UK) is similarly a not-for-profit scheme of short-term accommodation in mountain huts/refuges. In those technology has been thought of as a double ended sword and sharing is performed in a lot of different ways.

Within this PhD and focusing on the above mentioned schemes, the role of technology in the act of sharing will be researched and the 'real' sharing space accordingly (e.g. a car as a space) having always in mind the perception that both digital and non-digital architectures and designs organize bodies in the space.

In this regard, as the employed designs -digital and physical- play a leading role in shaping the ways that sharing is performed and having in mind that SE platforms are predicted to infiltrate more and more aspects of our everyday lives, this research, employing Participatory Action Research methods intends to provide sociotechnical design implications for sharing schemes that embrace solidarity, foster users' agency and users' self-representation. In addition, the utilization of an unused remote refuge situated in Northern Greece and its transformation to a bothy-like structure within a co-design process is one of the ideas that will be explored.

The proposed CDT for Digital Civics aims to develop a cohort of 60+ students engaged in theorising, designing, developing, and evaluating personal & community-based digital technologies to explore and create forms of civic engagement that support local communities, local service provision, and local democracy. The CDT will work directly with several local authorities (in the Northeast of England), a variety of SMEs and NGOs and some larger international corporations. As such there are various potential beneficiaries of the CDT.

Firstly, there are the students themselves who will graduate as highly skilled academic and applied researchers - well-versed in interdisciplinary collaboration and trained to transfer, leverage and exploit the insight generated from their research and who are able to contribute to the economic and social development of the UK.

The research they will conduct will be focused on supporting local communities, and given the aim to enhance public service provision and support engagement in local issues. It is likely that their research will enhance quality of life, health and wellbeing in these areas, improve social welfare and social cohesion in the participating communities and generally increase public awareness of social and economic issues that are likely to be affecting these research participants, and this will be done at various levels from older adults through to school-aged communities.

The research is also intended to have impact at a Government level, and through our direct collaboration with our participating local authority partners student research projects will directly influence policy making at local, regional and national levels. Case-based research will transform evidence-based policy, and provide evidence to support changing organisational cultures and practices (for example enhancing the role of public participation in local governance) and through shaping and enhancing the effectiveness of public services, by directly designing and developing digital augmentations. As such the research projects directly intend to enhance the efficiency, performance and sustainability of public services through the user-centred development of new digital technologies and the promotion of local activism and civic engagement.

Another significant impact of the CDT will be the development and training of skilled people in non-academic professions through the development and open-sourcing of learning materials, which aim to transfer research insight (including skills and processes as much as research 'findings') to non-academic organisations, such as SMEs, NGOs and larger corporations (sourced through our broad partner network). These SMEs, NGOs and corporations (alongside the doctoral students themselves) are also likely to be commercial beneficiaries of the research. Active processes of knowledge transfer will directly contribute towards wealth creation and economic prosperity by supporting the enhancement of research capacity, knowledge and skills in businesses and organisations and through the commercialisation of research in the formation of spin-out companies to serve the private, public and third sectors.