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Torkil Clem­mensen

Professor

Subjects
Design User experience Geopolitics Hybrid work Methodology Culture Psychology

Primary research areas

Cultural usability

I study usability as the fit between new designs and local cultural models of practice. My research requires geopolitical awareness to understand how digital tools, including AI and datasets, can be anchored, owned, and applied by local societies, communities, and businesses.

Relation artefact design

Relation artefact design is my take on human-work-interaction-design, linking human work with novel digital interaction. It’s a way to do “psychology-as-a-science-of-design,” developing socio-technical theories so designers embrace both technical and social perspectives, seeing outcomes like AI-systems as artefacts supporting human relations.

Professional knowledge

This is about designing computer support for diverse professional knowledge - medical doctors, engineers, UX specialists, train drivers, navigators, psychologists, and more. It also studies academic researchers’ knowledge, drawing on expertise research, critical psychology, and emerging metascience.

I use psychology to guide knowledge-based creation of sustainable socio-technical futures

I am a human factors psychologist turned into a business school professor with a durable and influential research profile in human-computer interaction and digitalization 
 

My research helps:  

- Drive an ethical and human-centred vision for interactive system development    

- Offer tools that foreground user meaning-making in technologically mediated environments   

- Address critical challenges in digitalization, cultural usability, and the design of smart workplaces, by bringing together social science, arts, and humanities scholars with engineers and computer scientists to foster cross-sectoral innovation   

- Emphasize the fusion of design thinking, psychology, and business strategy to produce graduates equipped to lead responsible digital transformation in both academic and professional contexts   

- Advance a vision in which psychology guides the creation of sustainable post-humane socio-technical futures  

- Develop scholarship on geopolitical tensions in HCI and culturally grounded design thinking that informs global debates on digital ethics, user autonomy, and the localization of interaction design  

Recent research projects

Danish DIREC project: Secure Internet of things (SIOT) - Risk Analysis in Design and Operation, (2022-2025), Budget: DKK 25,10 million, CBS part: one PhD fellow.

This project develops methods and tools for secure IoT systems, using attack-defense models, risk analysis, and usability studies to balance security, performance, and cost in critical applications.
https://direc.dk/siot-secure-internet-of-things-risk-analysis-in-design-and-operation/

European Psychology of HCI (2024 – ongoing)

This research project focus on shedding light on European Psychology of HCI , including what the European or local grounding of HCI research may mean, and what the ‘psychology of HCI’ may mean.
Article relevant to the project

AI-PROCARE (2026–2028)

Procurement of AI Systems for Sustainable Healthcare Work Environments

AI-PROCARE is a Nordic research project that investigates how the procurement of AI systems can support sustainable work environments in public healthcare. The project reframes procurement as a sociotechnical intervention with significant implications for employees, organisational practices, and patient care.

Through empirical case studies across the Nordic countries, the project develops and evaluates national and Nordic guidelines for responsible AI procurement. It combines research in HCI, digital health, public sector innovation, and work environment studies, and produces peer-reviewed Open Access publications alongside practice-oriented outputs.

AI-PROCARE engages procurement professionals, healthcare leaders, occupational health experts, and policy actors through co-design processes, reference groups, and Nordic collaboration. The project culminates in publicly available guidelines and a lasting digital resource to support future AI procurement practices in healthcare.
AI-PROCARE