Annual Showcase 2024
Our people
What an exciting year it’s been for the institute, from research to education to technology, there’s been so many advancements and successes to celebrate. We've been inspired by the stories we've heard from our people and what great world challenges they have been working towards and their well deserved achievements.
Research & Innovation
Our research communities
Health
This year the Health community has made strides in it's growth and with creating a new sub-community for early career researchers and was successful in an MRC biomedical data science leadership award bid.
Societies
The LIDA: Societies community seeks to strengthen connections between the social science and data science communities at Leeds, building capacity and collaboration in interdisciplinary research and impact that benefits society regionally, nationally and internationally.
Environment
The Environment community continues to maximise engagement with it's members with regular meetings and events, and new AI focused partnerships with the likes of The Alan Turing Institute.
Food
*NEW* Our latest research & innovation community to form, acknowledging the progress made in this area over recent years and prioritising the urgent public need for further funding and attention.
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.
Data Visualization
This year was the beginning of the new visualisation programme, featuring various events to foster community engagement and skill development. We started with a launch event in January 2024, which was the opportunity for colleagues to identify priorities for the year across campus.
Science of Data Science
Data science is a diverse and rapidly evolving area. Each year, new ideas, techniques, and principles emerge that change the scope and norms of the field. Keeping up-to-date with these developments requires a broad and reflective focus on the changing science and practice of data science itself.
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.
CHORAL
CHORAL is an exciting new platform to support and develop child health research across Leeds. CHORAL aims to improve children’s lives through the delivery of a sustainable programme of transformative research focussed on child health.
Strategic Partnerships
Alan Turing Institute
LIDA entered its sixth year of partnership with the Turing this year with a packed agenda of events and opportunities, with a heavy focus on artificial intelligence and strategic collaborations.
Supermarkets
In November 2023 the Nutrition and Lifestyle Analytics Team, with the Consumer Data Research Centre won the ESRC Celebrating Impact prize for the Business and Enterprise category for their work with retailers.
Health Innovation Leeds
With market-leading strengths in healthtech, digital, data and artificial intelligence, Health Innovation Leeds comprises a burgeoning industry cluster, world-class academic research and a single health and care partnership.
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.
Education & Training
Another busy year for the Education & Training Department with online masters, various scholarships and different meeting groups. We also hosted our annual careers event, bringing in local and national organisations to speak directly with students about possible career journeys and advice. We've also directly contributed towards increasing diversity in the future data science workforce and continue to work towards this.
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. The 2023-24 cohort of 11 LIDA data scientists worked on 20 different projects.
LIDA Open Data Science for Schools (LODSS)
LODSS is our widening participation initiative to inspire more young people, in particular those from areas of acute socio-economic disadvantage, to engage in digital skills and access digital careers. This year we ran two programmes of activity for the children of Keighley, Bradford.
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
The technology arm of LIDA has successfully onboarded LASER onto the SafePod Network this year, providing extensive opportunities for researchers to access their most sensitive data across the UK.
The Data Analytics Team has provided service and value to a large increase in users and data from last year. They have also expanded their offering to include more software expertise on the technology side, to compliment the existing data side.
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