UK's Digital Economy research boosted by 23 million investment in six new world-leading centers
As part of the Government's Summer Budget, the Chancellor, George Osborne, confirmed funding for six new multidisciplinary research centres - worth a total of £45 million with partner contributions - that will drive forward the UK's Digital Economy research, knowledge and skills.
Designed to help create and deliver real-world impact, the £23 million investment will come via The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and will support the centres over the next five years.
The centres will be hosted by the Universities of York, Bath, and Nottingham, Swansea University, UCL and Newcastle University and will draw in substantial support and leverage from over 150 engaged partners including universities, companies and other regional bodies such as Local Enterprise Partnerships and Councils.
Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson said: "This latest investment demonstrates our commitment to maximising the digital revolution for the UK. These Centres will lead the way in developing innovative digital products which enhance our daily lives -from personalised digital health services to the use of interactive media in education.
"By harnessing our international research excellence, in partnership with local and regional expertise, these Centres will accelerate Digital technology innovation for business and society's benefit."
To create real world impact, be it cultural, social or economic, the centres will focus on a wide variety of areas and potential applications, such as:
- improving motion capture technologies for entertainment industries and the application of this technology for the analysis of body movement to improve human performance in sport and develop prosthetics for amputees, plus creating opportunities for making savings for the NHS and MOD (Bath)
- seeking to refine the ethical use of personal data to create and deliver personalised products and experiences (Nottingham)
- harnessing the power of digital creativity to provide new technologies for digital games and interactive media and exploiting the space where they converge to benefit science, society, education and culture (York)
- the design of open source digital technologies and media to realise transformational models of local government services for social care, public health, education and local democracy (Newcastle)
- exploring how to deliver digital innovations that help people relate and respond to our rapidly expanding technological world, with a focus on health and social care, resource-constrained communities, heritage, and cybersecurity and cyberterrorism (Swansea)
- using data and advances in modelling to inform evidence-based policy that can address how regions can use assets to cooperate economically and help to rebalance the national economy (UCL)
The centres will build on the UK's existing academic strengths, grow and develop the pool of interdisciplinary trained researchers and work together to help position the country as a world leader in Digital Economy research.
Professor Philip Nelson, EPSRC's Chief Executive said: "Building on our previous investments, these new Digital Economy Centres will show how multidisciplinary research in the digital economy can be brought to bear on the big societal challenges we face. Their impacts in the real world will be shown by adoption by policy makers and improvements in services and economic benefits in the public, private and charitable sectors."
These centres are a result of a collaborative call with our partners the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Innovate UK, the Digital Catapult and others. By working together and involving users we have been able to encourage the leveraging of £22 million additional funding and support in kind that will boost the impact of these centres."
For further information please contact the EPSRC Press Office on 01793 444 404 or email pressoffice@epsrc.ac.uk
Provided by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
