Institute for Digital Consumption at the Bonn-Rhine-Sieg University of Applied Sciences
The Institute for Digital Consumption (IVI) of H-BRS supports teaching and research at the intersection of consumer sciences and business informatics.
Goals and tasks
The IVI teaches and researches approaches to promote digital autonomy, consumer protection and sustainability in connection with the digitalisation of consumer worlds. In doing so, it combines concepts and methods of consumer sciences and business informatics.
The aims of the institute are to bring together the often fragmented research of different disciplines in teaching, to promote the national and international visibility of the topic, and in particular to make an active contribution to implement the topic of IT security management in teaching.
Research and application fields
The IVI operates at the intersection between consumer science and business informatics. It investigates the increasing digitalisation of consumer fields and its effects on the consumption practices of consumers.
The core unit of our analysis are private households. Our approach takes their wishes and behavioural strategies as a basis to derive recommendations regarding the design of products and services in the following central research fields:
- Smart mobility and multimodal transport concepts
- Digital trends in nutrition and health
- Smart home and household digitalisation
- Financial management
- Shopping and procurement
In all these fields, the IVI combines technical approaches such as consumer analytics and information systems with theories of practice and digital market mechanisms. Through improved consumer information, we seek to support data protection, the confident use of digital products and services, as well as a more sustainable consumption.
