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Research Technology

By Professor Roy Ruddle, Director of Research Technology

In the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF2021) assessment, Leeds was ranked 8th in the UK for research power (source: Times Higher Education). As the REF environment statements of 11 out of Leeds’ 28 units of assessment show, LIDA’s infrastructure, facilities and data assets are central to the research conducted by an impressively diverse proportion of the University, including medicine, health, the environment, maths, computer science, business, and the social sciences. LIDA infrastructure, facilities and data assets are also central to the research of many of Leeds’ 40 Turing Fellows.

Part of that infrastructure is LIDA’s Azure-based LASER platform, which is the only platform at the University that holds both ISO27001 and NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT) accreditation. LASER currently supports 112 LIDA researchers working on 65 different projects that involve sensitive data. A similar number of researchers work with less-sensitive data on LIDA’s other platforms, which include the new LEARN platform for advanced AI, Machine Learning and Deep Learning research.

Three additional components of LASER are due to be completed and enter service this year. One is a capability for Powerwall visualization. The second is the LASER Dashboard, which will allow researchers to monitor their usage/costs of computational resources, and place LIDA in a position to develop a predictive model of lifetime costs of conducting academic research projects in the cloud. The third is a Data Import/Export App will save hundreds of hours of time for LIDA’s Data Analytics Team, while simultaneously removing time delays for researchers.

Find out more about LASER and the Data Analytics Team

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