Paper we co-authored with Maggie Hughes and Stuart Lynn on the need to consider 'second-order' civic technologies that go beyond simply putting out new individu...
Report written to inform upcoming public funding (CivTech Scotland) for new misinformation tech. We have to think outside the (pre/de) 'bunk'!
What can Scotland’s newest city teach us about the future of local democracy? 🏴
During my stay at the Edinburgh STS department, I found an unusual hobby: to make silly posters about concepts and authors whose work I admire.
In this paper with Sofie Illemann Jæger, we explore how citizen assemblies are carefully designed environments that shape how people deliberate, collaborate, an...
This paper reviews how older adults are included in usability and user experience research for mobile apps. Drawing on 56 studies, it shows that research often ...
In this paper, I aim to map the various design principles that emerge when people reflect on their experiences designing participation around science and techno...
How can we tell if a democratic innovation is genuinely embedded in local life? In Dunfermline, the UK’s newest city, the New City Assembly (dunfermlineassembly...
What is our obsession with reports? This article for Science for the People explores how Latin American Participatory Action Research reimagines science communi...
Every year, more guidelines and handbooks are published, instructing us on how we ought to design public participation. But designing participation isn’t a harm...
Iswe and our partners launched People in the Lead: A Citizens’ Track to Strengthen the Global Climate Regime as a COP30 Legacy. Co-authored by Rich Wilson, Lau...
This article provides a narrative review on the concept of dialogue within STS and Deliberative Democracy academic literature.
In 2024 I worked with the Scottish Parliament to help shape and evaluate its People’s Panels; an innovative democratic mechanism designed to bring diverse publi...
In 2025, I contributed to the evaluation for the Dunfermline New City Assembly; an ambitious initiative that aims to redefine what local democracy can look like...
This talk explores the intersection of deliberative democracy and civic technology, tracing the origins and foundational concepts of the civic tech landscape. I...
For years, we’ve been told a simple story about how experts relate to society: first came the deficit model, where the public was seen as simply lacking knowled...
What does it mean to put people at the heart of global climate governance? This week at the UN Climate Week in Panama City, we shared how the Global Mutirão - ...
Can literature reviews be both interpretive and systematic? I say YES! Systematicity need not be the exclusive domain of positivist methods, producing very dull...
Technologies to support citizen deliberation and participation form a growing market. This work has been commissioned to support the development of new technolo...
As part of my work with the Global Citizens’ Assembly (GCA), I’ve led the design and implementation of a democratic data infrastructure that connects citizen de...
Calls for democratising technology are pervasive in current technological discourse. Indeed, participating publics have been mobilised as a core normative aspir...