About the research group
The research group Moral Design Strategy aims to use a refreshing methodology to contribute to making a smart society more humane, in which the morality of the individual plays a central role. In doing so, we want to reduce the distance between the individual and the organisation and contribute to a more stable organisation in both the public and private domain.
The objective of the research group is to map individual morality (moral data) in concrete technological applications, to convert this moral data into application design, and to translate this process into new organisational strategy formulation. Moral data is the translation of individual morality into observable data. Moral design is the design process in which morality underlies innovation. Moral strategy is the organised and well thought-out direction we give to this process.
Research lines
The research group will focus on three lines of research (see below), which in total comprise seven defined projects. These pillars fit well into the matrix mentioned above (moral design, strategy, private & public), whereby the emphasis of these pillars differs somewhat.
Welcome to the neighbourhood! – Moral design and democracy.
Research line 1 focuses explicitly on the public domain, putting both moral design and strategy (policy) at the heart. The aim of this research line is to get citizens more involved in the moral design of technology that affects public interest. There are currently three projects that address social themes on three levels. The mobile moral lab (project 1) focuses on concrete technological applications that are deployed at the local government level, weighing the important values of citizens. Project 2 (moral data and the city) focuses on the city level, emphasising city-wide themes whereby data is used to increase mobility or to measure and improve the wellbeing of citizens, for example. This requires a clear and widely supported moral compass that citizens can identify with. Project 3 (a chatbot for change) has a broad social scope, in which we focus on the design of the public debate space and examine the role of Big Tech companies in relation to democracy and autonomy.- 1a. Mobile Moral Lab
- 1b. Moral data & the city
- 1c. A chatbot for change – Moral design and fake news
Applied human rights
Research line 2 focuses on both the public and the private sector, whereby both moral design and strategy are central. In both cases we investigate how fundamental rights can be translated into values for input in moral design. In the private domain, we focus on product design, and in the public domain on social design.- 2a. Product design & human rights
- 2b. Social design & human rights
Moral strategy and leadership
Research line 3 focuses mainly on the private domain and has a strong focus on strategy formulation. We will investigate how moral data as values can provide renewed insight into the communication strategy of commercial organisations, especially when companies are associated with a social debate through digital channels. We will also investigate how moral leadership can control digital transformation, with a particular focus on medium-sized companies in the Brainport region.- 3a. Prepping for Karen: a new strategy for business
- 3b. Moral Leadership & Brainport Eindhoven’s SMEs