Skip to main content

Societies Community

We are excited to report the growing activity around the LIDA: Societies community over the twelve months.

In May and June, we held a series of information sessions followed by a workshop to discuss the community strategy, and to develop plans for further interaction. Thanks to the 40 workshop attendees, we identified a number of activities that we could undertake to promote collaboration between social scientists and data scientists. We will be rolling out a series of activities in the Autumn.

We have also been central to developing further ties between Leeds City Council and LIDA. This is evidenced by two new projects on the LIDA Data Science Development Programme (DSDP) starting from October. These projects, led by colleagues in Geography, Transport Studies, and Law, focus on interdisciplinary data-centric challenges facing the council. The Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC) has continued to support new projects relating to LIDA: Societies through the DSDP – this year we have seen new collaborations emerging with Arup, Enterprise, and Wejo.

There have also been some important grant funding successes under the LIDA: Societies ‘umbrella’. In particular, the ESRC Centre for Vulnerability and Policing Futures has started work, led at Leeds by Dan Birks. The Centre will support a number of DSDP projects over the coming years.