ESRC Digital Good Network

News

New report: Evaluating the societal outcomes of digital technologies: building blocks and reflexive questions

The Digital Good Network asks what a good digital society looks like and how we get there. This discussion paper presents the emerging themes from our research so far, which we describe as the ‘building blocks’ for a good digital society. We also ask how we can evaluate whether digital technologies have good societal outcomes. The building blocks inform a set of reflexive questions for evaluating whether digital technologies have good societal outcomes. We present these questions as a possible means of evaluating the societal outcomes of digital technologies.

Evaluation paper

We want interested stakeholders to think with us about the best reflexive questions for evaluating the digital good, and to work with us over the next two years to test out, challenge, iterate and revise them. We started this with discussions with stakeholders across academia, civil society, policy and industry at the 2025 Digital Good Network summit. This document invites you to join us in that process.

Download our discussion paper Evaluating the societal outcomes of digital technologies: building blocks and reflexive questions