Introduction
What an exciting year it has been for the institute, from research to education to technology, there have been so many advancements and successes to celebrate.
Professor Susan Grant-Muller joined the executive team to become Co-director alongside Chris Gale. Susan is Chair in Technologies and Informatics at the Institute for Transport Studies and leads the Digital Futures theme, which aims to harness the potential of new forms of digital data to generate policy relevant insights for the transport and related sectors. She was also a founding leader of the LIDA Societies Community, which aims to shape and progress the way data science is carried out and can benefit future society. Susan is jointly responsible for the strategic vision and leadership of LIDA with Chris, ensuring LIDA continues to work in collaboration with all Faculties and multi-disciplinary academic communities to grow world class data science and AI at Leeds, in alignment with the Universities 10-year strategy.
We also welcomed Dr Roger Beecham to the team as Director of Research & Innovation this year, his experience and approach is sure to invigorate the communities and programmes. The research communities and programmes have continued to grow and thrive, with new members, new grant awards and the initiation of new groups. It has been fascinating to watch how the groups have evolved and the routes they have each taken to not only function effectively in promoting research, but also in providing opportunities to early career researchers. This has included the creation of several new groups including the Health ECR sub-community, alongside the Data Visualization, Science of Data Science and Food groups.
When ideas and motivation come together within a cross-campus group in this way, we have experienced how multi-disciplinary collaborations can really take-off and work to address some of our big societal issues.
Education has seen the return of multiple new initiatives launched just last year, including the OfS Scholarships and LODSS programme. Providing accessible routes for young people to find a way into the working world of data is important, especially when we know the inequalities that still exist in this sector. The Data Scientist Development Programme has maintained its excellent record of applications and project partners. We’ve been so proud to continue these efforts and give children, young people and career changers more opportunities to learn about what a career in data could mean for them, how data exists around them and some experience or qualifications to start on their journey. We also welcomed Jenny Sexton as our new lecturer to the team help to deliver the impressive portfolio of education and training opportunities.
From a technology perspective, highlights this year include an increase in the use of LASER and the growth of the Data Analytics team to five members. The team have continued to deliver an impressive end-to-end service to their users. This has become clear in the fantastic testimonials this year and an increase in the number of projects involving the use of LASER. A huge progression in the service offering is the new access for users to the most sensitive data across the country via the SafePod Network. This transformative infrastructure will allow the most distant of teams to work together.
The end of this year also sees the completion of the first 10 years of LIDA’s existence as an Institute. It has been a monumental 10 years, seeing significant political, technological, societal and global health challenges and changes. Our LIDA researchers and partners have remained at the forefront of data science for public good. Thank you all again for another fantastic year and here’s to the next 10!
LIDA Co-directors
Professor Chris Gale & Professor Susan Grant-Muller
Return to Annual Showcase 2024