What role do personal and societal values play in our work? To what kind of world do we aspire?
As an interdisciplinary community dedicated to understanding and facilitating human access to and engagement with information through technology, CHIIR members have responsibility and influence in many overlapping spheres of activity in the world. Through our research and practice, we are guided by personal, disciplinary and societal values that shape our goals, methods and actions. Yet, in many cases, these values are implicit, hidden, or unexamined.
In bringing a values focus to CHIIR 2027, we aim to surface, share and reflect on the diverse values that we bring to our work, making connections between our aspirations and our actions and creating a space where values have a voice.
We are fortunate to be able to draw on prior work in HCI and design that centres values (e.g., Design Justice, Value Sensitive Design) and a growing body of research on Fairness, Accountability, Transparency and Ethics (FATE) in information retrieval. The most recent Strategic Workshop on Information Retrieval in Lorne (SWIRL, 2025) Report provides further context and guidance for values-oriented research.
