Post-automation
Grassroots innovations in the development and use of digital technologies are generating important alternatives to the latest wave of automation in societies. A report explains more based on insights emerging […]
Category Archives: Digital fabrication
Technology and human capabilities in UK makerspaces
The relationship between technology and human capabilities is ambivalent and complex. A new article by Cian O’Donovan and Adrian Smith reports analysis of how users experience enhanced (or diminished) capabilities […]
Book chapter: the knowledge politics of smart urbanism and technopolitics in Barcelona
Drawing upon Adrian Smith’s fieldwork in Barcelona under the Knowledge Politics of Smart Urbanism project, a team of researchers from the project have co-authored a chapter about shifts in digital […]
Spreading the word about grassroots innovation
A new briefing from the STEPS Centre, called Making Futures, includes a summary of some activities we’ve initiated in recent years to help spread the word about grassroots innovation. More […]
New working paper: social innovation, democracy and makerspaces
Adrian Smith from SPRU recently published a new working paper that draws upon research in makerspaces in order to explore and illustrate some of the politics of social innovation, and […]
Grassroots Innovation Movements
You can get a twenty per cent discount on buying our new book, Grassroots Innovation Movements, published by Routledge and available in Paperback as well as Hardcover. The discount code […]
Makerspaces making sustainable developments …
Back in October we organised a workshop at the Machines Room makerspace in London, where participants addressed the question, how can makerspaces help cultivate sustainable developments. The results of the […]
Event: How can makerspaces, fablabs and hackerspaces help cultivate sustainable developments?
The aim of this event on Monday 26 October at the Machines Room in London is to bring together people involved or interested in sustainability activities to share, discuss, and […]
Tooling up: civic visions, fablabs and grassroots activism
What happens when public authorities take an interest in makerspaces? Who gets empowered by initiatives to give tools to the people, and what kinds of citizenship are envisaged? In this […]
New: case study reports on FabLabs and Hackerspaces
As part of the TRANSIT research project, Sabine Hielscher, Mariano Fressoli and Adrian Smith produced two case study reports on Fab Labs and Hackerspaces respectively. Each report documents the development of FabLab […]
Liberatory technologies? Grassroots digital fabrication
Adrian Smith was in Edinburgh on Monday 9th February to give a seminar about grassroots digital fabrication to the Institute for Studies of Science, Technology and Innovation. The seminar, Liberatory […]
Green transformations from below? The politics of grassroots innovation
“Throughout the history of both modern environmentalism and development there has existed an insistent undercurrent of practical, grassroots initiatives seeking socially just and environmentally sustainable forms of production and consumption”. […]
Grassroots digital fabrication: a literature review
Newly posted (pdf) to the site is a literature review on grassroots digital fabrication by Sabine Hielscher and Adrian Smith at SPRU (Science & Technology Policy Research). Community-based digital fabrication workshops (such […]
Research Briefing 24: FabLab and Hackerspace websites
In Research Briefing 24 Sabine Hielscher (SPRU) outlines initial impressions gained from an analysis of selected web-based materials on FabLabs and Hackerspaces in the UK to find out what type of […]
Research Briefing 23: Grassroots fabrication in makerspaces – report from a world café
On Thursday 10th April 2014 we organised a half-day World Café workshop in Copenhagen on the topic of grassroots fabrication in makerspaces. It formed one session within a wider conference […]
Makers, fixers and grassroots innovation for circular economies
On 3rd June 2014 the Centre for Sustainable Design will be hosting a workshop that explores Makers & Fixers: circular economy and grassroots innovation. The event will explore activities ‘within hacklabs […]
Blog from our grassroots digital fabrication world café
Sabine Hielscher and Adrian Smith have written a blog reflecting on some of the more affective issues arising from World Café discussions about grassroots digital fabrication: Building and nurturing a […]
