Design for Sharing was a six month project researching local sharing practices to help design technologies to support local sharing, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s Digital Economy strand, through the Sustainable Society Network+. We are now running a day to bring together other researchers and practitioners in this area to share findings and learn more.

The Design for Sharing  project focused on practices such as sharing spaces, skills, food, transport and objects (like tools). We spoke to people who share formally or informally, who are part of voluntary projects and/or who are running small businesses or social enterprises, irrespective of whether they are using digital technology to do so. At the core of the project were interviews with people in a London suburb to see how they designed opportunities to share across their neighbourhood. In addition to looking at one local area to build up a picture of how people go about sharing and what place it holds in their lives locally, we examined some projects that use digital technology to support sharing or are part of the sharing economy.

Our ‘Design for Sharing’ report can be found here: Design for Sharing (pdf)