To bolster the UK’s position as a leader in the areas of big data and algorithm research, five universities have been chosen to lead the county’s new Alan Turing Institute, which will be based at the British Library in London’s Knowledge Quarter.
The selectees that will head the Institute are Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford, Warwick and University College London.
Twenty-three institutions applied to be one of the chosen five leaders on the Institute, named for famed mathematician Alan Turing, who helped to pioneer the field of artificial intelligence and computation theory on top of cracking the German Enigma code during World War II.
“Alan Turing’s genius played a pivotal role in cracking the codes that helped us win the Second World War,” says Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. “It is therefore only right that our country’s top universities are chosen to lead this new Institute named in his honour.”
Making the Institute possible is the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), along with a five-year, $42 million endowment from the UK government. The five universities will also bring in additional funding, while the Institute itself will partner with other organizations both public and private as well.
The Institute is expected collaborate with other big data efforts based in the UK, such as the Open Data Institute, Catapult Network, ARCHER and the Hartree Centre.
A major component of the nation’s strategy to outcompete other big data players is to join academic research with private sector innovation through the Alan Turing Institute. Research will draw from the intersection of theory and practical application, providing benefits to the science sector and helping UK businesses to better understand their markets and appeal to their customers.
“The Alan Turing Institute will draw on the best of the best academic talent in the country. It will use the power of mathematics, statistics, and computer science to analyze Big Data in many ways, including the ability to improve online security,” says Professor Philip Nelson, chief executive of the EPSRC. “Big Data is going to play a central role in how we run our industries, businesses and services. Economies that invest in research are more likely to be strong and resilient; the Alan Turing Institute will help us be both.”