IRES: Research Partnership for Responsible Digital Transformation

This IRES project supports a collaboration between the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) and the Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH) in Switzerland to train U.S. undergraduate students in responsible digital transformation (RDT), which focuses on the ethical, comprehensive, and sustainable use of digital technologies in industry and society. During an 18 -week IRES program, students gain experience through pre-departure research training, virtual collaboration, and a four-week on-site research residency in Bern. Students engage in global issues such as AI ethics, digital privacy, and sustainability, developing solutions that reflect facets of responsibility across varied social and regulatory environments. This experience cultivates key professional competencies including ethical reasoning, intercultural communication, and critical thinking that are increasingly important in the global STEM workforce. Despite widespread emphasis on digital ethics and corporate responsibility, there remains a lack of actionable, empirically grounded frameworks that help organizations balance innovation with ethical, legal, and societal concerns. Through collaboration with faculty and industry mentors, students conduct case-based research and apply design science and experiential learning methods to develop a taxonomy of RDT practices. Students explore tensions between innovation and responsibility and test strategies for implementing responsible AI, data governance, and sustainable system design. This work contributes to a broader effort to translate emerging regulatory frameworks (such as the EU AI Act and NIST AI Risk Management Framework) into practical tools for industry use. By bridging theory and application, this project offers original contributions to responsible computing, interdisciplinary research training, and the preparation of globally minded STEM leaders. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.