The Digital Enablement Research Network (DERN) is an incubator of impact-based research focusing on the transformation of organisations, the economy and society through innovative digital technologies. DERN joins an elite group of academics with industry partners in the Asia-Pacific region and globally to develop innovative solutions for practice-inspired research projects.
The UNSW Sandbox Method: An Approach to High-Impact Research
The Sandbox Method is a methodology originally developed by DERN to incubate collaborative and problem-driven impact-based research. The Sandbox Method is a translational, multidisciplinary research methodology for co-creating business and social impact that aims to bridge the academic-practice gap and provide a platform for high-impact research.
The three pillars underpinning UNSW’s Sandbox Method are:
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Structured Exploration: Researchers working closely with practitioners identify issues of common interest as research and innovation opportunity
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Pragmatic Analysis: Researchers perform informed and viable analysis of the posed questions to design appropriate solutions
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Situational Insights: Actionable insights and proofs-of-concept are developed based on close collaboration among researchers and participating organization, experiments and iterative feedback cycle
Our Digital Sandboxes
Berjaya Retail Innovation (BRI) Consumer Analytics Sandbox
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Ecosysnet Blockchain-enabled Reward System Sandbox
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Tiger and Wildlife Conservation Analytics Sandbox
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Digital Platforms for Refugees and Migrants Sandbox
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News Corp Threat Intelligence and Cybersecurity Sandbox
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Food Innovation and Capability Development Sandbox: A Singapore Study
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Aglo Shopper Psychological Profiling Analytics Sandbox
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Harnessing Virtual Reality for Disability Awareness Sandbox
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Network Members
Network Leader
Dr. Shan Pan | AGSM Scholar & Professor, School of Information Systems
Shan L Pan is AGSM scholar and Head of School of Information Systems, Technology and Management at the UNSW Business School, The University of New South Wales. He is currently a research affiliate with the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Germany. He is an advisor to Alibaba Research Institute, China.
He is the founder and coordinator of Digital Enablement Research Network (DERN), a research incubator that champions high impact research. His research interest is digital enablement within the contexts of business and social innovation. He has conducted in-depth studies on state-owned enterprises, commercial organisations, rural villages, and non-profit organisations in China, Germany, Finland, India and parts of Southeast Asia. He has published in journals such as MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of the AIS, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Communications of ACM, Information Systems Journal, European Journal of Information Systems, and among others.
Core Members
Dr. Songting Dong | Senior Lecturer, School of Marketing
Dr. Dong’s major research interest lies in studying consumers’ preferences and their decision making journey, particularly in the digital age. He attempts to
advance the knowledge in this area by improving preference elicitation methods and utilizing advanced quantitative modeling approaches. Songting earned his
Bachelor’s and Doctor’s degrees (both with distinction) from Tsinghua University. Part of his PhD training was conducted in Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania
State University. His research works have appeared in Journal of Marketing Research, International Journal of Research in Marketing, and Journal of Product
Innovation Management.
Dr. Yenni Tim | Lecturer, School of Information Systems
Dr Yenni Tim has research interests in digitally-enabled phenomena and the unintended consequences of technology, and currently specialises in the fields of cybersecurity and data analytics. Her research on cybersecurity focuses on the human factors, from individuals’ awareness to organizational culture and education. She works with practitioners to create data-driven understanding and measures on cybersecurity awareness and behaviours. In her research, she also drives changes through behavioural interventions and the design of proofs-of-concepts, and develops metrics to assess the impact of such changes on relevant organizational outcomes.
Dr. Sandeep Mysore Seshadrinath | Lecturer, School of Information Systems
Sandeep is a Lecturer in Information Systems, Technology and Management at UNSW Business School. He holds a PhD in Business & Management from Loughborough
University, UK. In his dissertation he studied impact sourcing - a social innovation in outsourcing, in which he explored processes and strategies of social
entrepreneurship, community engagement and sociocultural transitions. Broadly, his research interests lie in the social study of information systems, with a special
focus on digitally-enabled social transformations. He has published his work in reputed journals such as Information Systems Journal, Information & Management and
The Journal of Strategic Information Systems.
Dr. Sam Kirshner | AGSM Scholar, Lecturer, School of Information Systems
Sam Kirshner is a lecturer in the area of Operations Management and Business Analytics. He studied electrical engineering at the undergraduate level and then
obtained his MSc. and PhD in Management Science at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. His primary research interests lie in the areas of revenue management,
technology management, and consumer exchange markets. His research addresses pricing and production decisions across a firm's family of products in the face of
demand uncertainty using models based on optimization techniques and game theory.
Dr. Toomas Tamm | Lecturer, School of Information Systems
Toomas Tamm is a Lecturer in Information Systems, Technology and Management at the UNSW Business School. His research and teaching focus on enabling organisations achieve their business goals through the use of IT. Current research interests include strategic IT decision-making processes, enterprise architecture, digital strategy and platforms and IT-enabled organisation design. His research has been published in Communications of the Association for Information Systems and MIS Quarterly Executive, presented at leading conferences, and his Ph.D. formed the basis for an ARC Discovery Project on enterprise architecture service provision. Prior to entering academia, he worked in the retail and services sector.