Annual Showcase 2023

Introduction

Here at LIDA, 2023 has certainly been a fascinating year for data science and particularly AI. We've seen huge strides across our Research and Innovation communities and programmes, new advancements in our Research Technology, and essential future proofing in our Education and Training portfolio.

I'm delighted to share our 2023 Annual Showcase with you and am sure you'll join me in congratulating everyone involved in making LIDA the home of data science and AI at the University of Leeds.

Research & Innovation

Over the past year, LIDA supported a research portfolio of 68 projects worth £90m. During this period, we contributed to the award of 9 research grants totalling almost £ 18m and a further 14 grant applications (value of £10m) awaiting results.

All research grant applications that LIDA supported ranged across our expertise in Health, Societies and Environment for various funders, with a wealth of different partners across the public, private and third sectors.

Our research communities

Health

This year the Health community has identified emergent areas that include mental health, nutrition, dental data and the link to growing work across the University in the area of child health.

Societies

Following our initial events last year, the Societies community has continued to develop its vision for stronger collaboration between the social science and data science communities at Leeds.

Environment

The Environment community fosters cross-university collaboration between researchers who apply machine learning in their day-to-day research in the physical sciences at the University of Leeds.

Our research programmes

Artificial Intelligence

Our primary strategic objective is to enhance awareness among AI/ML researchers about the extensive research taking place across various Schools and Faculties.

Immersive Technologies

This year marked the launch of the new immersive methodologies programme with a community online workshop. Here, participants representing faculties from across the University helped set the priorities for the forthcoming year.

Data Science Infrastructures

The programme covers the Computing/Computer Science Foundations and the Data Science Infrastructures, respectively. It reflects work in the School of Computing, particularly the Distributed Systems and Services group.

Our research eco-system

Consumer Data Research Centre

The Consumer Data Research Centre is working with industry and public sector partners to facilitate the use of consumer data in research to provide unique insight into lifestyle, activity, attitudes and behaviours and to help policy makers better understand the societal and economic challenges facing the country.

Centre for Immersive Technologies (CfIT)

CfIT was launched in June 2013 with the vision of ensuring that emerging immersive technologies are used to build a better society. The centre is now striving to make certain that in little over half a year’s time we can celebrate five years of success in meeting the objectives that underpin this vision.

NIHR Biomedical Research Centre

The National Institute for Health & Care Research Leeds Biomedical Research Centre (NIHR Leeds BRC) is a £20.4M infrastructure award to the Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust in partnership with the University of Leeds and the University of York.

N8

The N8 Research Partnership is a collaboration of the eight most research intensive Universities in the North of England: Durham, Lancaster, Leeds Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and York.

Strategic Partnerships

Alan Turing Institute

Summer 2023 marked the 5-year anniversary of the partnership between the Alan Turing Institute and the University of Leeds, through LIDA, which was celebrated with a well-attended event.

Supermarkets

A busy 12 months collaborating with supermarkets for the Nutrition and Lifestyle Analytics Team, led by Prof Michelle Morris. The team have moved from the School of Medicine to the School of Food Science and Nutrition with Michelle's new role as Prof of Data Science for Food.

Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust

N8

Education & Training

Student talking at the Data Science Careers Event LIDAs education and training activities have enjoyed a busy and successful year, with many exciting new initiatives including our first Data Science Careers event, MSc scholarships for underrepresented groups, the launch of our fully online MSc in Data Science (Statistics) to name just a few.

We've also developed new initiatives through our Education & Training Committee and hosted meetings with the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Leeds Local Interest Group.

Masters Courses at LIDA

Our online Data Science (Statistics) masters degree offers students the opportunity to learn in-demand data skills such as data acquisition, data preparation, data wrangling, modelling and analysis, and how to deal with missing data.

Masters scholarships

This year we have awarded 19 scholarships for underrepresented groups to study data science-related Masters courses. The new scheme aims to encourage more women, black students, disabled students and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds into data science and AI industries.

Data Scientist Development Programme

LIDA’s award-winning Data Scientist Development Programme (DSDP) is a capacity-building programme for early career data scientists responsible for producing novel research methods and proof-of-concept data products in partnership with external stakeholders. In 2022-23, the cohort of 12 LIDA data scientists worked on 20 different projects.

LIDA Open Data Science for Schools

As part of a widening participation initiative in 2023, and in addition to their data projects, LIDA data scientists and Programme members worked with the Keighley Schools Together network to co-create and lead bespoke digital skills events to inspire, engage and enable local secondary pupils.

Our education and training ecosystem

CDT: Data Analytics & Society

The Centre for Doctoral Training in Data Analytics and Society, was established in 2017 and has been in phase 2 since 2020. It's latest milestone is the launch of its seventh and final cohort, which began in October 2023, consisting of 21 students, with five starting at the University of Leeds. Since its inception, the centre has funded a total of 120 students, shaping them into the future leaders of data analytics. These students have not only honed their skills but have also worked on innovative solutions for real-world problems.

CDT: Artificial Intelligence for Medical Diagnosis and Care

The UKRI CDT in AI for Medical Diagnosis and Care is now in its fifth year. The Centre is led and hosted by the University of Leeds and is founded on a close partnership with the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. It has found its excellent home in both the Sir William Henry Bragg Building and LIDA, where its students benefit from the opportunity to build a truly interdisciplinary network of highly talented researchers. The CDT was set up in April 2019 has recruited over 50 researchers, with its fifth cohort in September 2023.

CDT: Satellite Data in Environmental Science

SENSE will fund 70 PhD students, providing them with stipend, residential training, fieldwork funds and covering all university fees for 3-years and 9-months. Our students will obtain a PhD from the University of Edinburgh or the University of Leeds, and your certificate will recognise the exceptional training you received as part of SENSE, and will feature the logos of the four core institutions involved in this training: the Universities of Edinburgh, Leeds, the National Oceanography Centre and the British Antarctic Survey.

Research Technology

LASER dashboards, powerwalls and SafePods, it's been a busy year. Looking forward, LIDA staff are playing key roles in the procurement of new infrastructure for high-performance computing (HPC), AI, data storage and general computing capability, funded by the University’s £28 million strategic investment in Research IT.

FIND-AF API & Web App

The Data Analytics Team have been working directly with researchers to find a way to put a predictive model, that would benefit public health, in the hands of doctors and nurses. We are developing an API with a web app interface for medical staff to log into and enter patient details to receive a risk prediction of irregularities of the heart.
We aim to expand on this kind of work with other research groups throughout LIDA to continue to make research outputs publically accessible.

Natural Language Processing

The DAT have been working closely with IT Services to find a way that native Azure resources can be deployed to research projects in LASER. Initially this has focussed on Azure Cognitive Services, an AI for data scientists. The aim is to also provide a service for transcribing and de-identifying audio and video files at scale, without the need for transfer to an external, third party organisation. This alone would reduce both risk footprint and costs.

SafePod Network - Coming Soon!

We're working towards enabling access to LASER from within ‘Safe Pods’ across the UK for the first time. This will put University of Leeds research, that uses the most sensitive data normally restricted to Safe Rooms within LIDA offices, into 23+ other locations, whilst maintaining the level of security required for such data. We aim to build on this further in the future, to enable greater collaboration between the University of Leeds and organisations across the UK; collaboration that is otherwise restricted by the security requirements of the data.