Exploring our value and impact
The Jean Golding Institute
Making data work for everyone
1. Who we are
Working in partnership with the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence
The JGI acts as the main point of contact between the University of Bristol and The Alan Turing Institute – the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence – working together in world-leading research to change the world for the better.
2. What we do
We create an environment where novel data-intensive research areas are explored and developed, and interdisciplinary exchanges promote a spirit of collaboration in order to enhance research outputs and impact.
The JGI has four priority workstreams and four cross-cutting activities that support both fundamental research and multidisciplinary collaborations across institutional boundaries.
Data driven solutions to societal challenges
We work with internal and external partners to develop data driven solutions to tackle the challenges facing society
Data governance and reproducibility
We support open, accessible science and best practice in research, working both within and beyond the University
Data visualisation and materiality
We support projects that explore how data is conceptualised and how people imagine, understand and experience data
Data Science and AI fundamental research
We support the development and dissemination of fundamental research in data science and AI, to keep Bristol at the cutting edge
2. What we do
Developing communities through data
Bringing communities of researchers from across the university and beyond together to tackle challenges presented by novel and complex datasets donated by our internal and external partners.
Training and Professional Development
Providing training opportunities across the year and delivering ‘Bristol Data Week’ – a week-long series of workshops, talks and events in the field of data science and data-intensive research.
Ask JGI
A data science expertise/consultancy service – Supporting researchers at all stages of their careers within the university and developing external partnerships in data science.
The Alan Turing Institute
Providing a link to research opportunities, funding and events organised by The Turing partnership – the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence.
Education
The University of Bristol undergraduate and postgraduate programmes are designed to prepare the next generation of data science researchers in a broad range of applications domains.
Click below to find out more about the Data Science Educational Pipeline, including the BSc and MSc in Data Science and the Centres for Doctoral Training.
3. Our impact
The JGI has organised over 255 events since 2016 including workshops, training opportunities, talks and many public engagement events.
57
Networking and partnership events
59
Training Events
11
Data Competitions
4
Annual Bristol Data Weeks
2047
Global participants for Data Week Online 2021
Our competitive Seedcorn funding process has contributed a total of £143,707 to support early interdisciplinary collaborations with internal and external partners.
Over five years, the JGI has supported research endeavors that enabled the University of Bristol to achieve £61million in research funding in the area of data science and AI.
3. Our impact
Exploring data with The Office for National Statistics
Boosting Computer Vision research
Exploring new areas for research and innovation
Bristol Data Week
Is there a relationship between the movement of people for education and loneliness?
In 2019 JGI ran a data competition in collaboration with The Office for National Statistics (ONS) challenging participants to put forward a research question to better understand how the displacement of people for education affects loneliness. Participants were asked to answer the research question using the Loneliness Index developed by the ONS.
The winners Nina Di Cara and Tiff Massey used a novel methodology to look at the relationship between loneliness and movement for education and developed a “school desirability score” (SDS) to model the quality of schooling in each area. This method was of great interest to data scientists and ONS and Nina and Tiff were invited to the ONS Data Science campus to share new ideas for data analysis.
At the Data Science Campus we want to work with people from across the country to try new ways of analysing data to provide new information which can inform decisions. The methods used in this competition are exciting and will help in future explorations of how the country can make better use of its data.
Jasmine Grimsley
Senior Data Scientist at the ONS Data Science Campus
Boosting Computer Vision research
Dr Dima Damen successfully applied to the JGI Seed Corn funding call, this small grant was key to support her research on the EPIC Kitchens Project ( www.epic-kitchens.github.io ), which is the largest annotated video dataset from wearable cameras in the world. The datasets are non-scripted recordings in the home environment capturing all daily kitchen activity. This unique resource will boost computer vision research in home environments.
Following on from this project, Dr Damen was awarded the prestigious EPSRC Research Fellowship (UMPIRE) which the JGI supported to further the research activities in object interaction understanding.
I believe JGI brings together expertise in data-intensive research in a friendly and supportive environment, thanks to Kate, Patty and the rest of the team’s vision.
Dr Dima Damen
Professor of Computer Vision, University of Bristol
The Alan Turing Institute Data Study Group and MET Office Academic Partnership hackathon
Working in partnership, the JGI hosts and delivers impactful collaborative research events both live and online. We were the first academic institution to host a Turing Data Study Group outside London. This five-day event brought together organisations from industry, government and the third sector, with 50 talented multi-disciplinary researchers from across the world.
The University of Bristol is part of the Met Office Academic Partnership, which brings together some of the world’s best researchers to forecast and predict climate hazards, and their impact on society. During this 3-day online hackathon, the JGI provided data science support to over 100 (mostly early career) researchers at the event. The event has also created a legacy of open resources for future events and the research outputs will inform the contribution to COP26 conference in November 2021.
I hope that the various methods that were implemented and trained using our challenge dataset can now be put through their paces on our larger datasets. It will be interesting to see how they perform with slightly different data and imaging conditions.
| Danielle Paul Research Fellow, University of Bristol
Bristol Data Week – Making data work for everyone
One of the important roles of the JGI is to develop capacity in data science and AI, not only at the University of Bristol but also providing learning opportunities for external organisations, with this aim in mind, the JGI runs a very successful initiative ‘Bristol Data Week’, a programme of events that include training, seminars, workshops and networking opportunities. Over the years, Bristol Data Week has grown in content and reach and in 2021 we hosted over 2,000 attendees from across the world.
As more sectors become data-driven, provision of data analytics knowledge across members of our society will promote more equitable communities.
The events are always really well organised and facilitated. They discuss very interesting topics and are very stimulating. Great work, please keep going!
Wonderful session, thanks for walking us through the colourful and beautiful world of data visualisations!
This day was mind-blowing in truth. This workshop and the entirety of its resources, links, and demonstrations was immensely valuable in terms of practical know-how.
4. Get involved
There are lots of ways that you can get involved with the JGI
Apply for seed corn funding
We run a seedcorn funding call in Autumn each year.
Enter one of our competitions
Opportunities to work on real-world data, win prizes and make connections.
Develop your network
We support knowledge exchange across disciplines and sectors.
Join our Data Ethics Club
Online co-working meet ups and Data Visualisation Group.
Join our mailing list
Don’t miss out on all the latest news, events, competitions, funding and other opportunities – join our mailing list via our website or by emailing your name, job title and organisation to: jgi-admin@bristol.ac.uk
How JGI connects people across data science and the community
JGI is the bridge to all the possibilities of data science, connecting researchers with the resources, partners and information they need to tackle the challenges facing society.
Data science is the great unifier. Its emergence is bringing about a major cultural shift in academia towards interdisciplinary research.
4. Get involved
Ask JGI
Need support with data analytics? Ask JGI how we can help.
Ask JGI is a data science consultancy service that University of Bristol doctoral researchers and staff can access for free. Our team of data scientists and research software engineers offers support and advice for all your data science and data intensive research queries.
The service is also available for external queries, and we often facilitate interactions between research groups and industrial, government and third sector organisations.
Email: ask-jgi@bristol.ac.uk