AIMday Data 2018Edinburgh March 15, 2018

Data Expertise at Edinburgh

Companies working with academics from The University of Edinburgh can engage in research across a wide range of data disciplines.

Research and technology areas include: 

  • Analytics and Machine Learning
  • Cloud Computing and Infrastructure
  • Databases, Data Quality, Integration and Exchange
  • Data Flows and Real-time Streaming
  • Data Security & Privacy
  • Image Processing
  • Information Visualisation
  • Mobile & Location Based Applications
  • Natural Language Processing
  • Parallel Computing
  • Search, Semantic Web and Information Retrieval
  • Text Mining & Knowledge Discovery
  • e-Health record and large scale “omics” analysis

Cyber Security

The University of Edinburgh is one of 14 Government-approved Centres of Excellence for Cyber Security Research in the UK.

All are recognised by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) as meeting the tough minimum standards required – including a critical mass of academic staff engaged in leading-edge cyber security research.

The University is also home to the University of Edinburgh Cyber Security and Privacy Research Network, which is a multi-disciplinary research network facilitating connections and collaborations across the University linking researchers in the Schools of Informatics, Engineering, Maths, Law, Social Sciences including Government and Politics.

High Performance Computing (HPC)

Based at the University of Edinburgh, EPCC (Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre) is the UK’s only supercomputing centre with a global reputation. Since its inception in 1990, EPCC has gained an enviable reputation for leading edge capability in all aspects of HPC, Big Data and novel computing.

EPCC is built on three key foundations: the hosting, provision and management of high performance computing and data facilities for British and European academia and business; research and consultancy to support the computing activities of those organisations; and the creation of novel and high performance software solutions for industry and commerce.

With HPC, tasks that take months on a standard desktop computer can be accomplished in hours or even minutes. Using parallel processing to deliver unprecedented computing capability, HPC unlocks new frontiers of problem solving, prediction and data analysis.

Machine Learning

The University of Edinburgh is home to the Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation (ANC) that fosters the study of adaptive processes in both artificial and biological systems. The Institute encourages interdisciplinary and collaborative work bringing together the traditional disciplines of neuroscience, cognitive science, computer science, mathematics and statistics.

The Research Programme on Machine Learning is hosted by the Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation and connects researchers in Machine Learning methods and applications across the School of Informatics and more broadly the University of Edinburgh. The Machine Learning Group is interested in a broad range of the theoretical aspects of machine learning as well as applications. Much of the current excitement around machine learning is due to its impact in a broad range of applications. The applications considered in this research include astronomy, systems biology, neuroscience, natural language processing, robotics, and computer vision.

Healthcare Analytics

The University of Edinburgh is home to the Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics, which is forging new connections between social science, informatics and data science to advance understanding of disease and improve health and care for patients and populations.

At the Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine and Roslin Institute, this significant expertise in healthcare informatics is being applied to large scale data sets from UK Biobank electronic healthcare records and omics data.

The University is home to Edinburgh Genomics, which via The Scottish Genomes Partnership has made significant investment into illumina High Seq X infrastructure . This is providing next generation sequencing data to support these integrated programmes that drive new insight into disease, therapeutics development and patient care.

Human Data Interaction (HDI)

The Centre for Design Informatics at The University of Edinburgh provides a platform in which design and data science can mix. The Centre draws on the University’s unique combination of strengths in Informatics and Design, to inspire, equip and nurture a new generation of design-informatics researchers, practitioners and entrepreneurs.

Design for HDI goes beyond the organisation and understanding of data, requiring the development of platforms that balance the values of all stakeholders within complex digital economic systems, and that offer ways of comparing those values.

The Centre delivers design-centred solutions for commercial, cultural and civic sectors. For instance:

  • Security – applied ethics for secure domestic internet-of-things devices;
  • Health – informatics to support conditions associated with ageing communities;
  • Mobility – models of data driven transport across civic and private networks;
  • Finance – payment services within peer-to-peer lending frameworks.