Oxford University will play a key role in the creation and the activities of the new Alan Turing Institute. The Institute will build on the UK's existing academic strengths and help position the country as a world leader in the analysis and application of big data and algorithm research. Its headquarters will be based at the British Library in London.
Oxford is one of the five universities selected to lead the Alan Turing Institute, Rt Hon Dr Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, announced today.
Vince Cable said: "Alan Turing's genius played a pivotal role in cracking the codes that helped us win the Second World War. It is therefore only right that our country's top universities are chosen to lead this new institute named in his honour. Headed by the universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford, Warwick and UCL, the Alan Turing Institute will attract the best data scientists and mathematicians from the UK and across the globe to break new boundaries in how we use big data in a fast moving, competitive world."
The delivery of the Institute is being coordinated by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) which invests in research and postgraduate training across the UK. The Institute is being funded over five years with £42 million from the UK government. The selected university partners will contribute further funding. In addition, the Institute will seek to partner with other business and government bodies.
Researchers across Oxford University are already conducting world-class research in data science and analytics, as evidenced by the results of the recent Research Excellence Framework. Oxford's involvement in the Institute will be led by five departments: The Mathematical Institute, Department of Computer Science, Department of Statistics, Department of Engineering Science, and the Oxford Internet Institute.
The new Institute will tap into world-leading strengths and achievements across these scientific disciplines. Examples include the Mathematics of evolving networks. Research from Oxford is now routinely applied by digital marketing companies such as Bloom Media in Leeds to analyse the issue-based conversations taking place on Twitter, in real time. This has led to more responsive marking and to novel crowd-sourced intelligence services. Further examples of work in Oxford and more on the Institute can be found here.