research

Dr Kreps’ areas of research interest fall broadly under the umbrella of a cultural study of the ‘information society’. He is interested in all aspects of virtuality, and has established a reputation in eAccessibility. His background in Cultural Studies and Sociology bring a critical and philosophical approach to his research in Information Systems. His books bring new philosophical perspectives to bear upon the study of information systems.

Dr Kreps is currently pursuing a number of research directions including:

  • How critical theorists and philosophers such as Gramsci, Foucault, Bergson and Whitehead can be understood in light of the developments in systems theory and complexity theory, and what the latter can learn from them.
  • What impact these ideas might have on our understanding of the digital world and the direction it should take.
  • How these concerns play out in User Experience contexts.

International 

David is Chair of the IFIP Technical Assembly – the committee of Technical Committee Chairs, 2023-2026.

From 2018-2023 David was Chair of IFIP TC9 on ICT and Society, leading nearly 600 academics and practitioners from over 60 countries, across ten different working groups, and also a member of IFIP Board.

He was Co-Chair of HCC15 – Human Choice and Digital by Default: Autonomy vs Digital Determination

He was Co-Chair of HCC14 – Human-Centric Computing in a Data-Driven Society.

He was Conference Chair of HCC13 – This Changes Everything, held in Poznan, Poland, September 2018.

He has been Programme Chair of the Virtual Technologies and Social Shaping track of the 9th Human Choice and Computers Conference (HCC9) which was part of the World Computer Congress in Brisbane in September 2010; he was one of the Programme Committee for 2014’s HCC11 in Turku, Finland; and he was Conference Chair of HCC12 – “Technology and Intimacy: Choice or coercion” held at MediaCityUK September 2016.

David is a Senior Editor of the journal Information Technology and People

As a founder member of the Association of Information Systems’ Special Interest Group on Social Inclusion (SIGSI), he was Programme Chair of the Masculinities and ICT Minitrack of the Americas Conference on Information Systems in Lima, Peru August 2010.

He is regularly Associate Editor for both ICIS and ECIS – the International and the European Conferences on Information Systems, and has delivered papers at conferences in many countries around the world.

Publishing

Apart from published conference proceedings his books include monographs, ‘Against Nature: The Metaphysics of Information Systems‘, published May 2018,  Bergson, Complexity and Creative Emergence published in August 2015, and a collection of essays entitled ‘Gramsci and Foucault: A Reassessment’ edited by Dr Kreps, published by Routledge in February 2015, and another entitled ‘Understanding Digital Events: Bergson, Whitehead and the Experience of the Digital‘ published in May 2019.

David has also published in international journals and in edited collections.

Funded Research

  • Mainstreaming the SDGs In August 2023 Dr Kreps was awarded €166k by the J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics for an Action Research project to map teaching and research activity across the School aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, encourage it, and discover new networks and synergies to promote further work. The first phase of the showcase was launched in February 2024.
  • British Academy Mid-Career Fellow In August 2017 Dr Kreps was awarded a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship worth £106k, to undertake a one-year project entitled, Understanding Digital Events : A philosophical and sociological study of virtual experience in the everyday. This highly prestigious award allows “academics to focus on a major piece of research and to communicate their work to a wider audience, by obtaining time away from teaching and administration commitments.”
  • InnovateUK / ESRC funded Knowledge Transfer Partnership In January 2014 Dr Kreps began a £120k two year Knowledge Transfer Partnership, with funding awarded by the ESRC and the TSB (now InnovateUK), with the Macclesfield based company, Sigma UK, to explore User Experience research.
  • European Framework Programme 7 (FP7) In 2008 David brought over £300k into Salford University winning a place as partner in a consortium for a Europe-wide project, DEHEMS led by Manchester City Council, aimed at improving awareness of home energy usage, and bringing about behaviour change for a reduced carbon footprint.
  • European Social Fund (ESF) In 2006 Dr Kreps was awarded over £80k by the European Social Fund to undertake a research project entitled “Combating eDiscrimination in the North West.”