Area of investment and support

Area of investment and support: AI and Data Science for Engineering, Health and Government (ASG)

ASG is an integrated programme in artificial intelligence (AI) and data science. It is being delivered by The Alan Turing Institute and is designed to improve:

engineering through digital twins
health through delivering personalised medicine
physical and life sciences
government through data-linking for policy development.

Budget:: The overall programme budget is £38.8 million
Duration:: This programme runs from 2018 to 2023
Partners involved:: Funders: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) (lead), Medical Research Council (MRC). Partners: Accenture, City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, British Antarctic Survey, British Geological Survey, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Department for Education (DfE), Diamond, Durham Constabulary, Earlham Institute (EI), Francis Crick Institute, Growing Underground, Health Data Research UK (HDR UK), Home Office, Information Commissioner’s Office, John Innes Centre, Ministry of Justice, National Oceanography Centre, National Crime Agency, National Health Service (NHS), Ofcom, Office for Artificial Intelligence, Office for National Statistics, Public Health Scotland, Rolls-Royce, Rosalind Franklin Institute, Rothamsted Research, Scania, UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

The scope and what we're doing

This programme is intended to be a large, interdisciplinary investment which makes advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and data science to support a range of research council, industry and government objectives.

Through five high-priority themes and three cross-theme projects, the programme aims to transform:

engineering through digital twins
health through delivering personalised medicine with early disease detection and machine-learning based diagnosis
physical and life sciences, by applying AI to experiment outputs
government through data-linking for policy development, particularly in the criminal justice system.

Themes

The five high-priority themes are:

digital twins
health
AI for science and engineering
the criminal justice system
tools, practices and systems.

Cross-theme projects

The three cross-theme projects are:

shocks and resilience
ecosystems of digital twins
environment and sustainability.

Why we're doing it

The research programme is aligned with the UK’s Industrial Strategy (GOV.UK), in particular the AI Grand Challenge’s first mission, which is to use data, artificial intelligence (AI) and innovation to transform the prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of diseases by 2030.

The biggest challenges that our societies face, from the COVID-19 pandemic to social and economic instability, overpopulation and the climate emergency, involve complex interconnections between the following systems:

environmental
healthcare
social
economic
political
engineering.

Addressing these grand challenges therefore requires both deep disciplinary expertise and ways to convene and combine expertise from different disciplines, strongly connected to problem owners.

Traditionally, this has been a substantial challenge. However, by providing the tools and methods to handle, combine and model large, disparate datasets, modern data science and AI tools have the potential to transform this process, with myriad benefits to society.

The vision of AI and Data Science for Engineering, Health and Government (ASG) is to demonstrate, through a diverse range of activities organised and presented as an integrated whole, how AI and data science can be used to effectively address significant societal challenges and transform health, science, engineering and government.

Opportunities, support and resources available

There are currently no funding opportunities, workshops or networking events available.

For information relating to collaborations, please contact the AI for Science and Government (ASG) team at The Alan Turing Institute.

Past projects, outcomes and impact

See the:

Who to contact

Ask a question about this programme

Danielle Dickson, Senior Portfolio Manager for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (primary contact)

Email: danielle.dickson@prep.ukri.org

James Dracott, Programme Director and Head of Theme for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (secondary contact)

Email: james.dracott@prep.ukri.org

Governance, management and panels

The AI and Data Science for Engineering, Health and Government (ASG) programme is governed by its management board, which includes its theme leads as members as well as representatives from EPSRC, delivery partners of the investment and independent members from the Turing’s University Partner Network.

In April 2021, two new leadership roles within ASG were appointed:

Professor Jonathan Rowe as Programme Chair
Professor Ben MacArthur as Programme Director.

The ASG programme also has an external advisory board which offers strategic advice to the management board. Members were invited based on their independence from the ASG programme and their range of scientific, industry and government expertise. The Chair of the external advisory board is Dame Wendy Hall and the Deputy Chair is Professor Tom Rodden.

Last updated: 26 September 2024