Human-Computer Interaction Workshop for PhD Candidates

The ever-increasing role of computing in our everyday life has made the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research grow significantly in size and in scope over the past years. Today, adoption of effective human-computer interaction provides enhanced solution in fields of education, health care, and distributed work practices. The expansion of the field has led to the development of new ideas and opportunities, but has also resulted in new challenges for the HCI researchers. The need for collaboration, knowledge- and experience sharing has never been bigger.

MediaFutures, together with SLATE Research Centre, t2i lab, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, and Schibsted had the pleasure of organising Human-Computer Interaction workshop for PhD candidates and industry representatives. The workshop, co-funded by the Research Council of Norway and the Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program – Humanities and Society (WASP-HS), took place in Bergen and over Zoom on December 9-10, 2021.

First of many workshops

The workshop brought over 20 PhD candidates from Norway and abroad. Among them were Pete Andrews and Jonathan Geffen, both PhD candidates in MediaFutures’ Work Package 4 (WP4).  IT and media industry representatives included Anders Grimstad from Schibsted, Audun Klyve Gulbrandsen from Spello, and Patrik Andersson from Volvo.

This was the first in a planned series of workshops to come, where PhD candidates could present their planned, ongoing, and publishable work, and were provided with the opportunity to receive feedback. The workshop facilitated discussions on topics of common interests and provided a platform for developing novel ideas regarding HCI.

Says Morten Fjeld, leader of WP4: “We are very happy to bring together a solid number of engaged PhD-students, as well as company representatives, and a couple of talented master students. Physical meetings like this one play a key role for young researchers to establish contacts with their peers and to build their network from early on. The inspiration a physical meeting can give can hardly be achieved through videoconferencing. With colleagues in Sweden and Switzerland we are planning to organize PhD workshops on a regular basis.”

Jonathan Geffen, PhD candidate in WP4 points out: “From a new PhD candidate’ perspective I can say that this was a very useful workshop as it offered the opportunity to learn about different approaches to HCI research and how they are used in a variety of domains and industries. I also feel, that after making the initial connection with other PhD students in this workshop, it is easier to follow up with future collaboration opportunities and support each other in our research”.

3.5 million NOK in funding grant for enabling equipment in HCI

HCI has been under growth the last few years. Late 2019, the Department started offering an in-person HCI lecture series, featuring late-breaking results from PhD-theses. Last fall, the Department of Information and Media Studies, in cooperation with a handful of departments and centres at the University of Bergen, and under the leadership of Prof. Morten Fjeld, was granted 3.5 million NOK for enabling equipment for research excellence in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). You can read more about this here.

Photo (1) credit: Anna Pacholczyk 

Photo (2): From the HCI Lecture Series, 04.02.2020: Interacting with Information Beyond the Desktop by Prof. Lars Lischke from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL).