Innovation & Research
Transforming
research into
innovation and
sustainable impact
Our rigorous research helps develop and assess new and emerging technologies
Our Innovation & Research team includes social scientists, data scientists, ethical, legal and human rights and science communication experts. We work with our clients to assess their needs, understand their problems, and develop innovative and impactful solutions. We lead and participate in international, European and nationally–funded research projects and tenders.Â
Benefits

Excellence
High-quality, rigorous research and an applied professional approach

Experience
Over 15 years research experience

Flexibility
Innovation and research solutions that are tailored per client, per project and goals

Thought leadership
Recognised contributions to research, knowledge and innovation demonstrated by funding success and publication

Diverse research expertise
A diversity of subject matter expertise to address a range of needs

Interdisciplinarity
An interdisciplinary team of social scientists, data scientists and legal and communication experts
Research Clusters
Climate, Environment & Energy
We conduct research and develop tools and solutions in the areas of climate change, environmental challenges and green transitions. Our approach to climate change, clean energy, green deals and just transitions focus on deep, interdisciplinary, and collaborative engagement between society, technology, and the environment.
To learn more about our activities in this field, please visit the dedicated page.
Â
Crisis & Security
We provide research, advice, and tools to protect people and communities and reduce the impacts of disasters and emergencies across all phases of the disaster management cycle. This covers humanitarian crisis resulting from man-made, natural and hybrid hazards. We also provide expertise in the areas of conflict prevention and stabilisation. Our services enhance the resilience of groups at risk and increase the capacity of crisis management, humanitarian, and civil society actors. We ensure that respect for human rights and ethics is at the forefront of our research and work in close partnership with stakeholders.
To learn more about our activities in this field, please visit the dedicated page.
Cybersecurity ResearchÂ
We engage in cutting-edge research on key cybersecurity topics including technical, organisational and human drivers of cybercrime, cybercrime prevention, investigation and prosecution, threat analysis and cybersecurity market research, cybersecurity certification, standardisation and EU policymaking. We participate in EU–funded projects and works closely with the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA).Â
To learn more about our activities in this field, please visit the dedicated page.
Ethics, Human Rights & Emerging Technologies
We carry out research and help our clients and partners embed human rights, ethical and societal values into the development of new technologies over their entire lifecycle. Our research informs the design and development of our ethical AI solutions. We apply Ethics-, Human Rights- and Privacy-by-design approaches to research. We engage with stakeholders and conduct impact assessments to assess and mitigate risks of new technologies.Â
To learn more about our activities in this field, please visit the dedicated page.
Health
We support the improvement and protection of public health and human wellbeing. Our team works to enhance health research and support preparedness and response to health emergencies. We carry out research to inform the design and development of technologies addressing ageing, chronic diseases, emergency and pandemic management, healthcare systems, and mobility solutions. We also carry out research in ethical AI design and development in the healthcare sector.
To learn more about our activities in this field, please visit the dedicated page.
Law Enforcement and Community Safeguarding
We co-design technologies and policies in partnership with law enforcement and community safeguarding organisations to benefit society. We support practitioners to understand technology design and operational problems, as well as to develop solutions that respect privacy- and human rights and are socially acceptable. We bring our extensive experience from research to co-design our ethical AI solutions used by clients for operational challenges. We are pioneers in applying Privacy and Ethics-by-Design methodologies for law enforcement and community safeguarding.Â
To learn more about our activities in this field, please visit the dedicated page.
Trilateral Research offers research services in six thematic areas which represent different societal challenges. Our research in these areas closely informs and feeds into the design and development of Trilateral’s Ethical AI and consultancy portfolio.Â
Our team conducts applied research on behalf of our clients to advance knowledge, boost organisational potential, and enable fully-informed decision making at government-policy and corporate-management levels. This ensures that these organisations maximise the impact of their initiatives, with a better return on investment and positive public feedback on topics that really matter.
We conduct research and develop tools and solutions in the areas of climate change, environmental challenges and green transitions. Our approach to climate change, clean energy, green deals and just transitions focus on deep, interdisciplinary, and collaborative engagement between society, technology, and the environment.  
To learn more about our activities in this field, please visit the dedicated page.
We provide research, advice, and tools to protect people and communities and reduce the impacts of disasters and emergencies across all phases of the disaster management cycle. This covers humanitarian crisis resulting from man-made, natural and hybrid hazards. We also provide expertise in the areas of conflict prevention and stabilisation. Our services enhance the resilience of groups at risk and increase the capacity of crisis management, humanitarian, and civil society actors. We ensure that respect for human rights and ethics is at the forefront of our research and work in close partnership with stakeholders.
To learn more about our activities in this field, please visit the dedicated page.
We engage in cutting-edge research on key cybersecurity topics including technical, organisational and human drivers of cybercrime, cybercrime prevention, investigation and prosecution, threat analysis and cybersecurity market research, cybersecurity certification, standardisation and EU policymaking. We participate in EU–funded projects and works closely with the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA).
To learn more about our activities in this field, please visit the dedicated page.
We carry out research and help our clients and partners embed human rights, ethical and societal values into the development of new technologies over their entire lifecycle. Our research informs the design and development of our ethical AI solutions. We apply Ethics-, Human Rights- and Privacy-by-design approaches to research. We engage with stakeholders and conduct impact assessments to assess and mitigate risks of new technologies.Â
To learn more about our activities in this field, please visit the dedicated page.
We support the improvement and protection of public health and human wellbeing. Our team works to enhance health research and support preparedness and response to health emergencies. We carry out research to inform the design and development of technologies addressing ageing, chronic diseases, emergency and pandemic management, healthcare systems, and mobility solutions. We also carry out research in ethical AI design and development in the healthcare sector.
To learn more about our activities in this field, please visit the dedicated page.
We co-design technologies and policies in partnership with law enforcement and community safeguarding organisations to benefit society. We support practitioners to understand technology design and operational problems, as well as to develop solutions that respect privacy- and human rights and are socially acceptable. We bring our extensive experience from research to co-design our ethical AI solutions used by clients for operational challenges. We are pioneers in applying Privacy and Ethics-by-Design methodologies for law enforcement and community safeguarding.Â
To learn more about our activities in this field, please visit the dedicated page.
Service Portfolio
The development and deployment of a new project, service, product, or initiative, must consider potential ethical issues to ensure responsible innovation and sustainability. Trilateral Research offers ethical impact assessments to understand the potential ethical impacts of an initiative and identify how to avoid or minimise these negative impacts. Similarly, ethics-by-design helps build-in ethical protection in the early stages of developing a product or service. Together, these approaches include ethics throughout the design and development process to build superior technologies and services that better support human flourishing and avoid negative impacts.
Technological development provides organisations with the tools to interpret, analyse, and assess larger amounts of data at a much faster pace. This drives responsive, informed decision making, and ensures that organisations meet the needs and expectations of their customers and maintain their competitive edge. Our team works closely with our clients and end-users in an iterative, agile, user-centered manner, to develop bespoke ethical-AI solutions able to provide data-driven insights of strategic and operational utility while ensuring data is understandable and contextualised.Â
Our clients and partners want to understand how socio-economic, political and technological drivers will impact innovation in a particular domain in the future. Trilateral has over 15 years of scenario experience across diverse contents (e.g., emerging technologies, populism). Our techniques help stakeholders unveil hidden assumptions and coordinate insights from their expertise to tease out issues that might otherwise be missed.
Our tailored policy research and analysis presents policymakers with practical solution-based recommendations to policy concerns and issues. We have engaged international, EU and national policymakers on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data protection, ethics assessment and ethical impact assessment, human trafficking, ICT, privacy impact assessment, privacy seals, surveillance, and water security standards. We do policy monitoring, policy research and evaluation (including options analysis), produce guidance and recommendations for interventions (reports, white papers, policy briefs). We also create impact by feeding research into policy consultations.
We develop, apply, and inform the development of standards to maximise project output and avoid negative impacts and unwanted consequences. Trilateral has contributed to existing standards (ISO 29134), CEN Workshop Agreements (CWA 17145-2 and CWA 17147), and currently participates in international and national working groups in artificial intelligence, blockchain, immersive technologies, privacy and cybersecurity.Â
Technology pilots enable potential users to interact with and experience how a technology works before its launch. Not piloting a technology, risks it failing when launched; wasting financial investment in and potentially damaging an organisation’s reputation. Technology pilots test, validate, and evaluate new technologies to provide developers, end-users, and evaluators with insights on what is and is not working. Our team works closely with our clients to evaluate technologies in the environment where they will be adopted by end-users, ensure the impact of the technology is understood from different viewpoints and perspectives and draw on different research methods (e.g., interviews, workshops, participant observation, surveys) to engage with pilot participants.
Modern cutting-edge research is data intensive. Trilateral Research works with our clients to identify the main challenges and strategic opportunities that relate to managing data within research projects, manage data protection impact assessments, and develop a robust legal/ethical compliance strategy and a proactive, positive outlook on ways to maximise the benefits from managing your project’s research data. Trilateral has extensive experience developing research data management strategies for large and small projects across different research domains and sensitive projects e.g., artificial intelligence solutions, climate, cybersecurity, health, law enforcement.
Machine learning is increasingly having an impact in many domains however such use can raise ethical issues and can have serious consequences, for example, in predictive policing, financial lending, or family screening. Trilateral Research evaluates machine learning algorithms using a diverse set of algorithmic transparency and audit techniques to make decision-making processes more transparent, identify and analyse situations where they perform poorly, and probe for biases. Our interdisciplinary team of experts develops AI to support ethical decision making by humans, not to replace it.
Trilateral offers a range of impact assessments (basic to comprehensive) to suit client needs – each tailored to context and project. These include integrated and specific impact assessments. Our privacy and/or data protection impact assessments help organisations comply with privacy and data protections standards and requirements and support Privacy-by-Design. Social Impact Assessments identify how new projects, technologies or services might impact communities and society and help mitigate potential risks and maximise positive impact. Socio-economic impact assessments help identify and address significant and adverse impacts of technologies early-on and help policymakers guide the development of technologies to increase social and economic benefit. Human rights impact assessments examine policies, legislation, projects and initiatives for their impacts on human rights and help clients determine how human rights might be adversely affected by their activities and what they can do to address this and avoid them in the future.
Collecting user requirements enables engineers and technologists to build the narrative of what a solution will achieve, why it is important to achieve this, and how this can be done. Gathering and analysing these involves different methods matched to the product or service. Trilateral Research’s team works closely with clients to discover user needs, pain points, and potential benefits. We investigate what goals are users trying to achieve, what barriers prevent users from realising these goals and why they exist, how legal, ethical and privacy concerns affect these goals, and how proposed solutions impact current client practices.Â
Service Portfolio
Technological trend analysis
Our multidisciplinary collaborative research projects leverage innovations with high potential impact to benefit our economy and society. We help researchers improve their technology innovation, including better identification of early-stage ideas and aligning them with the societal challenges and needs using horizon scanning tools and methodologies. We integrate legal analysis and ethical, privacy, human rights and socio-economic impact assessments to identify potential positive impacts and risks associated with technology trends.
Legal analysis
The development of new and emerging technologies often raises several legal issues and concerns e.g., bias and discrimination, privacy infringements, and threats to life, health and safety. During the design and development of these technologies, legal research and analysis helps identify and understand current laws and regulatory frameworks, potential legal conflicts, public policy considerations, challenges and gaps. Trilateral Research’s team of legal and technology experts conduct rigorous research to help clients gain deeper understanding and sensitisation to legal issues and developments, draw comparisons between jurisdictions, comprehend gaps, identify potential changes and reforms needed in law and policy. Our team offers a broad range of legal expertise, including doctrinal research, comparative legal research, human rights research and reforms-based legal research.
Ethical impact assessment and Ethics by Design
The development and deployment of a new project, service, product, or initiative, must consider potential ethical issues to ensure responsible innovation and sustainability. Trilateral Research offers ethical impact assessments to understand the potential ethical impacts of an initiative and identify how to avoid or minimise these negative impacts. Similarly, ethics-by-design helps build-in ethical protection in the early stages of developing a product or service. Together, these approaches include ethics throughout the design and development process to build superior technologies and services that better support human flourishing and avoid negative impacts.
Data science analytics, modelling and visualisation
Technological development provides organisations with the tools to interpret, analyse, and assess larger amounts of data at a much faster pace. This drives responsive, informed decision making, and ensures that organisations meet the needs and expectations of their customers and maintain their competitive edge. Our team works closely with our clients and end-users in an iterative, agile, user-centered manner, to develop bespoke ethical-AI solutions able to provide data-driven insights of strategic and operational utility while ensuring data is understandable and contextualised.Â
Scenario development and foresight
Our clients and partners want to understand how socio-economic, political and technological drivers will impact innovation in a particular domain in the future. Trilateral has over 15 years of scenario experience across diverse contents (e.g., emerging technologies, populism). Our techniques help stakeholders unveil hidden assumptions and coordinate insights from their expertise to tease out issues that might otherwise be missed.
Policy research, evaluation and recommendations
Our tailored policy research and analysis presents policymakers with practical solution-based recommendations to policy concerns and issues. We have engaged international, EU and national policymakers on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data protection, ethics assessment and ethical impact assessment, human trafficking, ICT, privacy impact assessment, privacy seals, surveillance, and water security standards. We do policy monitoring, policy research and evaluation (including options analysis), produce guidance and recommendations for interventions (reports, white papers, policy briefs). We also create impact by feeding research into policy consultations.
Informing standards
We develop, apply, and inform the development of standards to maximise project output and avoid negative impacts and unwanted consequences. Trilateral has contributed to existing standards (ISO 29134), CEN Workshop Agreements (CWA 17145-2 and CWA 17147), and currently participates in international and national working groups in artificial intelligence, blockchain, immersive technologies, privacy and cybersecurity.Â
Technology pilots
Technology pilots enable potential users to interact with and experience how a technology works before its launch. Not piloting a technology, risks it failing when launched; wasting financial investment in and potentially damaging an organisation’s reputation. Technology pilots test, validate, and evaluate new technologies to provide developers, end-users, and evaluators with insights on what is and is not working. Our team works closely with our clients to evaluate technologies in the environment where they will be adopted by end-users, ensure the impact of the technology is understood from different viewpoints and perspectives and draw on different research methods (e.g., interviews, workshops, participant observation, surveys) to engage with pilot participants.
Research data management
Modern cutting-edge research is data intensive. Trilateral Research works with our clients to identify the main challenges and strategic opportunities that relate to managing data within research projects, manage data protection impact assessments, and develop a robust legal/ethical compliance strategy and a proactive, positive outlook on ways to maximise the benefits from managing your project’s research data. Trilateral has extensive experience developing research data management strategies for large and small projects across different research domains and sensitive projects e.g., artificial intelligence solutions, climate, cybersecurity, health, law enforcement.
Algorithmic transparency
Machine learning is increasingly having an impact in many domains however such use can raise ethical issues and can have serious consequences, for example, in predictive policing, financial lending, or family screening. Trilateral Research evaluates machine learning algorithms using a diverse set of algorithmic transparency and audit techniques to make decision-making processes more transparent, identify and analyse situations where they perform poorly, and probe for biases. Our interdisciplinary team of experts develops AI to support ethical decision making by humans, not to replace it.
Impact assessments
Trilateral offers a range of impact assessments (basic to comprehensive) to suit client needs – each tailored to context and project. These include integrated and specific impact assessments. Our privacy and/or data protection impact assessments help organisations comply with privacy and data protections standards and requirements and support Privacy-by-Design. Social Impact Assessments identify how new projects, technologies or services might impact communities and society and help mitigate potential risks and maximise positive impact. Socio-economic impact assessments help identify and address significant and adverse impacts of technologies early-on and help policymakers guide the development of technologies to increase social and economic benefit. Human rights impact assessments examine policies, legislation, projects and initiatives for their impacts on human rights and help clients determine how human rights might be adversely affected by their activities and what they can do to address this and avoid them in the future.
User requirements gathering
Collecting user requirements enables engineers and technologists to build the narrative of what a solution will achieve, why it is important to achieve this, and how this can be done. Gathering and analysing these involves different methods matched to the product or service. Trilateral Research’s team works closely with clients to discover user needs, pain points, and potential benefits. We investigate what goals are users trying to achieve, what barriers prevent users from realising these goals and why they exist, how legal, ethical and privacy concerns affect these goals, and how proposed solutions impact current client practices.Â
Customers






















Commitment to Quality
We review quality regularly. Our Innovation & Research services are consistently positively evaluated by our research partners and clients. We have a consistent stream of repeat business and research collaborations, as well as multiple referrals. To find out more, please contact our team.