Peter leads work that explores how combining human and machine intelligence can develop innovative solutions to social challenges.

He oversees various research and practical projects exploring how human and machine intelligence can be combined to solve social challenges and how digital tools can provide new and innovative ways to involve the public in this process. This includes current projects on citizen engagement in smart cities, mainstreaming the use of digital tools for democratic innovation, the use of citizen science to better engage the public in climate change adaptation and mitigation and exploring the relationship between AI and human collective intelligence. Peter also co-authors Nesta’s work on the Future of Minds and Machines, which provided the first framework of its kind for understanding how artificial intelligence (AI) can support collective intelligence, and the HACID project which explores how AI can support better collective decision making in climate adaptation and medical diagnostics. 

Prior to establishing the centre, he led Nesta's work on a variety of themes, including the role of digital technologies in public and social innovation, crowdfunding, the collaborative economy and public innovation labs. Peter was responsible for Nesta's research into crowdfunding and P2P lending as an innovative way of financing products and services in the UK and has co-authored the reports Understanding alternative finance, Pushing boundaries and Crowdfunding good causes. He has also worked on developing a number of practical tools programmes for those interested in crowdfunding such as the Working the Crowd guide, the UK’s first online crowdfunding directory, Crowdingin.com and the arts and heritage matched crowdfunding pilot funded by the DCMS. 

Alongside this he has been involved in Nesta research projects on public sector innovation labs and led Nesta's research on digital social innovation. Peter has published a number of studies on this, including What next for digital social innovation and i-teams in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropy.

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