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Themes: Assistive & Accessible Technology

GDI Hub joins the new UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Textiles Circularity Centre, led by RCA

Yesterday the Royal College of Art (RCA) announced a grant of £5.4m by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to establish the Textiles Circularity Centre (TCC) to enable the transition to a more ‘circular’ economy.

The collaboration includes scientists and researchers from Cranfield University, University of Cambridge, University College London, University of Leeds, University of Manchester and University of York, and from the RCA’s Computer Science Research Centre and School of Communication.

Global Disability Innovation Hub team will work with colleagues across UCL focused on the Comsumer Experience Research stand of the EPSRC Textiles Circularity Centre. This new EPSRC Textiles Circularity Centre will support us to improve inclusion across populations in textile consumer experience throughout co-design of interactive and accessible consumer interfaces.

Innovation changes lives - by further understanding behaviour, cultural, technical, environmental and the economics behind textiles - we create opportunities for human-centred design, human-computer interaction, cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychology among many others. The potential for disability innovation is significant.

UCL is co-leading the Consumer Experience Research Strand

The Consumer Experience Research Strand will establish a coupling between the resource flow and human wellbeing by building a Product Cultures Lab and a Circular CX Framework with which to design CXs that engage people in interactive, meaningful, co-creative and sustainable cultures around products, transforming their role from ‘consumers’ to ‘active co-creators’ in a sustainable product cycle.

Textiles Circularity Centre (TCC)

The four year award is one of five circular economy centres funded by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centres Programme, which explores how reusing waste materials in textiles, construction and other industries could deliver huge environmental benefits and boost the UK economy.

The TCC supports better social, economic and environmental outcomes through an interdisciplinary consortium of partners from academia, industry, NGO and the public sector that represent the main systems of: Behavioural (human-centred design, human-computer interaction, affective computing, cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychology); Cultural (product, fashion, communication design); Social (social science); Technical (biotechnology, materials science & design, computer science, machine learning, advanced manufacturing); Environmental (life-cycle and material flow assessment); Economic (supply chain design, business models).

This new EPSRC Textiles Circularity Centre will support us to improve inclusion across populations in textile consumer experience throughout co-design of interactive and accessible consumer interfaces.

Dr Youngun Cho, GDI Hub