When you write an article for a peer-reviewed academic article, the feedback and evidence of impact you expect is a citation in another journal article in the future. So I was pleasantly surprised to get positive social media feedback on LinkedIn immediately for Piece of Cake: Assuring Specific Qualities of Product in Farm Lifecycles with DLT – Can Evidenced Based Practice be supported by Participatory Action Research Methods? It is published online and in The Journal of the British Blockchain Association Volume 4 Issue 1. [Update, December
The article presents how qualitative research design and methodologies can help companies and academics achieve evidence-based practice, and is the conclusion of a project that was run as participatory action research (PAR), involving a consortium including SRUC academics, farmer practitioners and a technical DLT platform developer, between 2018 and 2020.
We also presented the project as a technical demonstration video,
and as a case study that was sent to the press and media and proposed to conferences. These outputs also received a really warm reception, with the international media picking it up (BBC’s Farming Today), and features in the national news (The Herald), sector press (The Scottish Farmer, Farming UK, British Baker, and Food Ingredients First International) and regional press (The Courier, Press & Journal).
I’ve missed presenting the outputs and outcomes of the project at conferences – sharing with people in person, but online versions of conferences give people access to the content, and I’m next speaking at the Women In Technology World Series:
My talk on 16.11.20 is on “Re-establishing Trust in Technology”. The real impact of any project is the good it can do in a world hit by climate emergency and food safety and security challenges, as well as digital and data ethics concerns. So this pilot needs to progress forward, and I am focussing on moving it to a next iteration, and new phase where the notion of digital trust is explored through practically applying DLT and automating strong authentication of hardware and software actors.