University of Birmingham set to join The Alan Turing Institute

The University of Birmingham is joining a prestigious national institute set up to advance the world-changing potential of data science.

Birmingham is set to become part of The Alan Turing Institute, which is named in honour of the British pioneer whose work in theoretical and applied mathematics, engineering and computing laid the foundations for the emerging field of data science.

The Universities of Birmingham and Exeter are now set to join the five founding universities – Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford, UCL and Warwick—as well as university partners— Universities of Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and Queen Mary University of London— which were recently announced as joining the Institute.

University of Birmingham Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir David Eastwood said: "We are delighted and excited to be joining The Alan Turing Institute and contributing our data science expertise. We look forward to working with other leading universities to ensure the UK continues to make a significant contribution towards advancing the world-changing potential of data science."

The six new universities will work with the Turing, strengthening a growing scientific and industry network for data and AI research in the UK.

Following the growth of its network, the Turing will now enter a phase of induction as it assimilates the new partners into its research community. During this period, it will work with the new universities and welcome further conversations about collaboration.

Sir Alan Wilson, CEO of the Institute, commented: “In order to deliver on our ambitions to advance data science and artificial intelligence research, we need to enable the broadest possible collaboration across the sector.

“I welcome our discussions with Birmingham and Exeter about joining the Turing network, and look forward to working with all our partners and the wider data science and AI community to advance research, innovation and impact in these important technologies.”

Professor Paul Alexander, Co-chair of the Strategic Research Initiative in Big Data at the University of Cambridge (one of the five founding universities of The Alan Turing Institute), commented: “The Alan Turing Institute has a critical role to play in driving data science and AI research in the UK. Essential to its success will be growing collaborations across the scientific landscape.

“As a founder university of the Turing, we are delighted to welcome these two new partners into the network, and look forward to working with them to advance the world-changing potential of these new technologies.”

The new universities set to join the Turing network have been admitted based on the excellence of their research and its alignment with the Institute’s research interests, ability to bring new expertise and opportunities which add to the core strengths of the Institute and its existing partners, and are willing to contribute financially to the Institute.

Subject to signing a partnership agreement, it is anticipated that the new university partners will be working with the Institute to develop collaborative programmes of research from spring 2018. 

For more information, please contact:
• Tony Moran, Interim Head of Communications, on +44 (0)121 414 8254. Out of hours call +44 (0)7789 921165.
• Beth Wood, Press & Communications Manager, The Alan Turing Institute, on +44(0)20 3862 3390 / +44(0)75 3803 8168.

• The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top 100 institutions, its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers and teachers and more than 5,000 international students from over 150 countries.

Find out more about the Turing’s plans to expand the university network and express an interest in engaging with the Institute.