£22 million for new smart data services
17 October 2024
Smart Data Research UK is announcing an investment of £22 million in four new data services, enabling researchers across the UK to access new forms of smart data.
The services include the first national smart data donation service, a pioneering satellite imagery service, and services that provide new insights into our economy, environment, health, and wellbeing.
This investment marks a significant step forward for smart data research in the UK. With a coordinated and collaborative approach, Smart Data Research UK will provide a safe and efficient way to access and use smart data for public benefit.
Smart data is data generated through everyday interactions with the digital world, including via mobile apps, navigation systems, social media, and shopping. It offers a powerful opportunity to understand society and improve lives.
Federated data services:
Imagery Data Service (Imago)
This data service will unlock the potential of satellite imagery to provide a much richer understanding of urgent challenges facing the UK. It will adopt a highly innovative approach, combining novel computing and AI methods with stakeholder collaboration to develop new data products at scale. These new datasets, along with training and research, will help address pressing issues in fields such as environmental vulnerability, urban development and housing, inequalities, and wellbeing.
- Led by Professor Daniel Arribas-Bel, University of Liverpool and Professor Rachel Franklin, Newcastle University
Smart Data Donation Service
The Smart Data Donation Service (SDDS) will address a significant gap in the understanding of our digital lives by empowering citizens to take control of their own data and share it safely with researchers. SDDS will recruit a cohort of data donors, initially focusing on 90,000 donations from video game users and expanding to wider online data including social media. The service meets an urgent need for evidence-based policy around online safety and digital wellbeing. It will enable research into mental health, digital literacy, online community, addiction, discriminatory behaviour, and disinformation.
- Led by Dr David Zendle and Professor Florian Block, University of York
Geographic Data Service
This service will integrate a wide range of data sources to generate new insights into equitable and sustainable growth – bringing focus to geographic disparities, barriers to opportunity and the circumstances of vulnerable populations. Building on the strong foundation of the Consumer Data Research Centre, the Geographic Data Service team includes experts from Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and the University of Edinburgh. It will develop partnerships with data providers and coordinate a national master’s dissertation programme to engage a new generation of smart data researchers.
- Led by Professor Paul Longley, University College London and Professor Alex Singleton, University of Liverpool
Healthy and Sustainable Places Data Service
Also building on the success of the Consumer Data Research Centre, the Healthy and Sustainable Places Data Service (HASP) will help address persistent and pressing challenges that cut across health and sustainability, and discover new ways to understand local economies, health, lifestyles, and transportation patterns. HASP will draw upon data that spans retail, business, transport and infrastructure sectors to provide integrated datasets for the research community.
- Led by Professor Nik Lomax, Professor Michelle Morris, Professor Ed Manley and Professor Mark Birkin, University of Leeds
Centres of excellence
These data services will work collaboratively as part of the Smart Data Research UK programme to:
- Acquire, steward, and enable safe access to a diverse range of smart data.
- Develop user-friendly services that support research and collaboration across academic disciplines.
- Ensure responsible use of data through good governance, public engagement, transparency and ethical guidelines.
- Build capacity within the research community by providing training, tools, and resources.
- Enable impactful discoveries by serving as centres of excellence for smart data research.
A strategic hub, based within the ESRC, will provide leadership and coordination as well as common services and ethical guidance.
Smart Data Research UK is also championing public engagement in smart data research, ensuring that smart data research is understood and responding to people’s concerns and aspirations.
“These new data services are a major step forward in our mission to unlock the power of smart data for society. By providing researchers with safe access to new data, methods and tools, we are empowering them to tackle some of the most pressing challenges facing the UK today, from boosting productivity to improving health outcomes.”
Joe Cuddeford, Director of Smart Data Research UK
“This investment in a new network of smart data services helps put the UK at the forefront of data-driven innovation. Data infrastructure is as critical to our shared prosperity as transport, water or power networks. When we invest in data infrastructure we are investing in economic growth, improved public services, and a more sustainable future.”
Stian Westlake, Executive Chair of the Economic and Social Research Council
The UKRI Infrastructure Fund
Smart Data Research UK is part of the UKRI Infrastructure Fund.
This strategic fund supports the facilities, equipment and resources that are essential for researchers and innovators to do ground-breaking work. It helps to create a long-term pipeline of research and innovation infrastructure investment priorities for the next 10-20 years. It supports multiple projects from new infrastructures to major upgrades, delivering a step change in infrastructure capability and capacity.
The fund spans the complete disciplinary spectrum. It funds infrastructures across all of the UK’s regions and nations and those forming part of major international collaborations.