Building trust and confidence through sustainable information systems research: towards a common future

The Information Systems research group at Mid Sweden University is the result of four separate groups, spread across three disciplines, artificially thrown together because we didn’t seem to fit into other developed research groups. What we were seen to have in common was ‘information’. The disciplines are: Archives and Information Science, Business Management and Organization, and Informatics.Shortly after this uncertain start, the University launched a demanding internal process for Assessment of Research and Coproduction (ARC13) over the previous five years. We didn’t have that much past together, so we set out to build ourselves a future, exploring our common interests as we gathered data for the evaluation. We pooled our research, hired a facilitator to help with a SWOT analysis, built trust within the group and achieved a remarkably good report from the external assessors. Participation in the multidisciplinary InterPARES Trust in Digital Records in an Increasingly Networked World Project has been an inspiring factor in the Archives and Information Science contribution to our new collaboration. Our Information Systems research group now focuses on five research challenges: Information value, quality, accessibility, sustainability and trustworthiness. Now we are having fun exploring the possibilities, confident that our InfoSys research group has its own sustainable future.