Gillian Youngs was Professor of Digital Economy at Brighton until 2016 and continues to research diverse aspects of the internet’s impact on society and economy, developing out of her early focus on globalisation.
Gillian is an applied theorist and is actively engaged in knowledge exchange, business and policy related processes, including through the Knowledge Transfer Network of the UK’s innovation agency Innovate UK.
She contributed to the development of the core theme of ‘Internet of Place’ for the Digital Catapult Centre Brighton (DCCB) which launched early in 2015 and in which University of Brighton is lead academic partner. She serves on both the Steering and Stakeholder Groups of the DCCB.
Gillian adopts an interdisciplinary approach to digital economy drawing on her research background in critical international relations, globalization studies, international communications and new media. She studies macro trends in the globalization of the digital economy, digital empowerment and inclusion including in relation to women, and new socio-technical literacies and applications in online production and consumption.
Gillian has recently started to focus on the links between creative and digital economy and the challenge of embedding multimedia and other creative skill sets and approaches more firmly in diverse processes of digital innovation. Her collaborative knowledge exchange work has included leading the AHRC-funded Brighton Fuse ‘Fusebox’ Knowledge Exchange Project (AH/L504014/1) (2014-2015) on a new start-up support programme for innovators at Wired Sussex following on from the Brighton Fuse project focused on the interplay between arts and humanities and digital technology in stimulating innovation and business success. She has led two ESRC research seminar series, one on Digital Policy: Connectivity, Creativity and Rights (ES/I001816/2) 2011-14 involving researchers and research students, policymakers and businesses. Gillian was also principal investigator on a British Academy project Discovering Digital Me: Forging Links Across Digital Identity, Digital Literacy and Digital Economy (SG102167) 2011-14.
Her national level academic work has included serving as a Member of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 Sub-panel 36: Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management. She has been a member of the ESRC Peer Review College since 2012 and additionally acts as a referee on funding bids for the AHRC and the EPSRC.
Gillian’s research council and other funded work has involved collaborations with colleagues at University of Birmingham, University of Leicester, Oxford University, University of Vienna, and Swansea University. She has spent two periods as a Visiting Scholar at University of California Riverside and is currently a Visiting Professor at University of South Wales, where she held a Research Chair in digital economy before joining the University of Brighton. She has successfully supervised eight PhDs in digital economy and communications including case studies in China, Thailand, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia.
She has given invited keynote and guest papers internationally in the US, China, South Korea, Turkey, Hungary, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Austria, Tanzania, and presented over 100 conference and workshop papers at national and international conferences. The third edition of her co-edited book Globalization: Theory and Practice (New York: Continuum) was published in 2008 having been one of the first critical collections on the subject in 1996. Her first monograph International Relations in a Global Age was published by Polity in 1999 and a second Global Political Economy in the Information Age: Power and Inequality was published by Routledge in 2007. Her edited collection Political Economy, Power and the Body was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2000, and an edited collection Digital World: Connectivity, Creativity and Rights from the ESRC research seminar series on digital policy she has led was published by Routledge in 2013. She is currently working on a volume on Virtual Globalization for Routledge.
Gillian has had a portfolio career in journalism, independent communications consultancy, and for the last 20 years full-time in academia. She has worked in high tech areas throughout her career including the civil aviation, airport and simulation sectors. This informs her focus on socio-technical transformations – in other words how social and technological processes interact to produce change.
The University of Brighton's engagement as lead academic partner in the new Digital Catapult Centre Brighton
An edited collection exploring connectivity, creativity and rights in the contemporary digital and creative economy
Feminist international relations and intelligence in a high-tech age at the University of Brighton.
A theoretical franework for linking spatial issues such as globalization to ideas surrounding the blurring of public and private identities
An ethical and political reframing of national and international politics
Youngs, Gillian (2016) Internet of Place: Innovation in the data-rich experiential economy. Version 1 UNSPECIFIED, Brighton, UK.
Youngs, Gillian (2015) Digital transformations of transnational feminism in theory and practice In: Baksh, R. and Harcourt, W., eds. The Oxford handbook of transnational feminist movements. Oxford Handbooks in Politics & International Relations . Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 857-870. ISBN 9780199943494 (Unpublished)
Inglewood, Richard and Youngs, Gillian (2014) Designing the Digital Economy - Embedding Growth through Design, Innovation and Technology [Report (for external body)]
Youngs, Gillian (2013) Digital world: connectivity, creativity and rights In: Youngs, Gillian, ed. Digital world: connectivity, creativity and rights. Routledge Research in Political Communication . Routledge, New York, pp. 1-14. ISBN 9780415839082
Youngs, Gillian (2013) Digital world: connectivity, creativity and rights [Edited Collections]
Youngs, Gillian (2013) Digital world: connectivity, creativity and rights In: Youngs, Gillian, ed. Digital world: connectivity, creativity and rights. Routledge research in political communication . Routledge, Abingdon, pp. 1-14. ISBN 9780415839082
Youngs, Gillian (2011) Feminist International Relations and intelligence in a high-tech age In: Bergman-Rosamund, A. and Phythian, M., eds. War, Ethics and Justice: New Perspectives on a Post 9/11 World. Routledge, London, pp. 112-127. ISBN 9780415552349
Youngs, Gillian (2010) The ‘new home front’ and the war on terror: ethical and political reframing of national and international politics International Affairs, 86 (4). pp. 925-937. ISSN 0020-5850
Youngs, Gillian (2009) Blogging and globalization: the blurring of the public/private spheres Aslib Proceedings, 61 (2). pp. 127-138. ISSN 0001-253X
Youngs, Gillian and Widdows, Heather (2009) Globalization, Ethics, and the 'War on Terror' Globalizations, 6 (1). pp. 1-6. ISSN 1474-7731
Youngs, Gillian (2009) Cosmopolitanism and Feminism in the Age of the War on Terror: A Twenty-First Century Reading of Virginia Woolf's 'Three Guineas' In: Nowicka, M. and Rovisco, M., eds. Cosmopolitanism in practice. Ashgate, Aldershot, pp. 145-159. ISBN 9780754670490
Youngs, Gillian (1993) Zygmunt Bauman, Intimations of Postmodernity Millennium, 22 (2). pp. 337-339. ISSN 0305-8298
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2001-7
AHRC Project- £98,000 February 2014 – January 2015 (AH/L504014/1)
Brighton Fuse ‘Fusebox’ Knowledge Exchange Project. Principal investigator.
British Academy Small Grant - £7,500 June 2011-March 2014 (SG102167)
• ‘Discovering Digital Me: Forging Links in Digital Identity, Digital Literacy and Digital Economy’. Principal investigator with co-investigator Panayiota Tatsou, Swansea University.
ESRC Research Seminar Series - £18,000 2011-2014 (ES/I001816/2)
• ‘Digital Policy: Connectivity, Creativity and Rights’. Principal investigator with co-investigators Dr Tracy Simmons, University of Leicester, Prof. William Dutton, Oxford Internet Institute, and Prof. Katharine Sarikakis, University of Vienna.
• Chair Digital Housing 2013: Building Digital Capabilities to Improve Housing Services, Inside Government seminar, London, January 30 2013.
• Invited Participant, European Science Foundation, Forward Look Final Conference, Media Studies – New Media and New Literacies, January 24-5 2013, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
• Member of Welsh Government Digital Economy Research Hub 2011-2012
• Strategic Insight Programme (www.siprogramme.org.uk) part-time consultancy (£2,250) on digital economy, tourism and heritage, with CMC2 (www.cmc2.org.uk), Monmouthsire. June/July 2012.
• Response to RCUK ‘Digital Economy’ Programme Review. Spring 2012.
• Submission to Ofcom ‘Local TV’ process. February 2012.
• Lead link for Technology Strategy Board’s (www.innovateuk.org) sponsorship of launch of 3vtv.co.uk at The Works, Ebbw Vale, January 2012.
Guest and keynote presentations and workshop leadership
• Chair, Industry Panel, Cine Excess International Film Conference and Festival, Birmingham, November 15-17 2013.
• Guest Speaker ‘Digital Economy’ School of Oriental and African Studies University of London, October 30 2013.
• Guest Speaker and Participant, Hack the Hackathon, London, July 5-7 2013. http://www.hackthehackathon.com/
• Plenary speaker, showcase event, AHRC Creative Exchange Network Wales, Millennium Centre, Cardiff, Wales, June 25 2013.
• Invited Speaker, Intersectional Conflict and Dialogue in Transnational Migrant and Digital Diaspora Networks Conference, University of Hull, April 11-12 2013.
• Invited Speaker, ‘Virtual Globalization: Directions in Digital Thinking’, Launch of Centre for Global Politics, Economy and Society Launch, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, January 16-17 2013.
• Guest panel chair and discussant at ‘Rethinking Small Media’ conference, School of Oriental and African Studies University of London October 6-7 2012.
• Member of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 Sub-panel 36: Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management.
• Member of ESRC Peer Review College 2012-
• Member of China Advisory Group of the UK Higher Education International Unit (IU) from 2011.
• Member of steering group of AHRC funded Creative Exchange Wales Network 2012-14. http://cewn.weebly.com/
• External on in appointments and promotions panels City University, Dublin, Ireland, 2011 and 2012.
• Elected as vice-president International Studies Association (ISA) 2008-9.
• Elected as Non-North American representative to Governing Council of ISA 2006-7.
• Member of the Feminist and Women’s Studies Association (UK and Ireland) executive committee from 2001 to 2004.
• Vice President. Global Studies Association, 2002-4.
• Referee for grant applications: ESRC, British Academy, Leverhulme, Canadian social sciences research council, Irish humanities research council, Guggenheim foundation, Nuffield foundation; Belgian Science Policy Office.
2008
2001-7
Current Funded Projects
AHRC Project- £98,000 February 2014 – January 2015 (AH/L504014/1)
Brighton Fuse ‘Fusebox’ Knowledge Exchange Project. Principal investigator.
British Academy Small Grant - £7,500 June 2011-March 2014 (SG102167)
• ‘Discovering Digital Me: Forging Links in Digital Identity, Digital Literacy and Digital Economy’. Principal investigator with co-investigator Panayiota Tatsou, Swansea University.
ESRC Research Seminar Series - £18,000 2011-2014 (ES/I001816/2)
• ‘Digital Policy: Connectivity, Creativity and Rights’. Principal investigator with co-investigators Dr Tracy Simmons, University of Leicester, Prof. William Dutton, Oxford Internet Institute, and Prof. Katharine Sarikakis, University of Vienna.
Policy-related Roles, Consultancy and Knowledge Exchange
• Co-Chair (with Lord Richard Inglewood) of AHRC-funded Design Commission Digital Revolution Inquiry (2013-2014)• Chair Digital Housing 2013: Building Digital Capabilities to Improve Housing Services, Inside Government seminar, London, January 30 2013.
• Invited Participant, European Science Foundation, Forward Look Final Conference, Media Studies – New Media and New Literacies, January 24-5 2013, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
• Member of Welsh Government Digital Economy Research Hub 2011-2012
• Strategic Insight Programme (www.siprogramme.org.uk) part-time consultancy (£2,250) on digital economy, tourism and heritage, with CMC2 (www.cmc2.org.uk), Monmouthsire. June/July 2012.
• Response to RCUK ‘Digital Economy’ Programme Review. Spring 2012.
• Submission to Ofcom ‘Local TV’ process. February 2012.
• Lead link for Technology Strategy Board’s (www.innovateuk.org) sponsorship of launch of 3vtv.co.uk at The Works, Ebbw Vale, January 2012.
Guest and keynote presentations and workshop leadership
• Chair, Industry Panel, Cine Excess International Film Conference and Festival, Birmingham, November 15-17 2013.
• Guest Speaker ‘Digital Economy’ School of Oriental and African Studies University of London, October 30 2013.
• Guest Speaker and Participant, Hack the Hackathon, London, July 5-7 2013. http://www.hackthehackathon.com/
• Plenary speaker, showcase event, AHRC Creative Exchange Network Wales, Millennium Centre, Cardiff, Wales, June 25 2013.
• Invited Speaker, Intersectional Conflict and Dialogue in Transnational Migrant and Digital Diaspora Networks Conference, University of Hull, April 11-12 2013.
• Invited Speaker, ‘Virtual Globalization: Directions in Digital Thinking’, Launch of Centre for Global Politics, Economy and Society Launch, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, January 16-17 2013.
• Guest panel chair and discussant at ‘Rethinking Small Media’ conference, School of Oriental and African Studies University of London October 6-7 2012.
Other professional roles
• Member of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 Sub-panel 36: Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management.
• Member of ESRC Peer Review College 2012-
• Member of China Advisory Group of the UK Higher Education International Unit (IU) from 2011.
• Member of steering group of AHRC funded Creative Exchange Wales Network 2012-14. http://cewn.weebly.com/
• External on in appointments and promotions panels City University, Dublin, Ireland, 2011 and 2012.
• Elected as vice-president International Studies Association (ISA) 2008-9.
• Elected as Non-North American representative to Governing Council of ISA 2006-7.
• Member of the Feminist and Women’s Studies Association (UK and Ireland) executive committee from 2001 to 2004.
• Vice President. Global Studies Association, 2002-4.
• Referee for grant applications: ESRC, British Academy, Leverhulme, Canadian social sciences research council, Irish humanities research council, Guggenheim foundation, Nuffield foundation; Belgian Science Policy Office.
