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The University of Southampton
Web Science Institute

University formally celebrates its partnership with The Alan Turing Institute

Published: 27 February 2019Origin: Turing @ Southampton
Professor Gopal Ranchurn
Turing Fellow Professor Gopal Ramchurn, is congratulated by Professor Sir Christopher Snowden

On Monday 11 February the University of Southampton officially launched its partnership with The Alan Turing Institute, the UK's national institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.

Vice-Chancellor, Sir Christopher Snowden, congratulated the twenty Southampton academics selected as Fellows of the Turing, who are drawn from a range of academic departments from Ocean and Earth Sciences to Mathematical Sciences. He said ‘I am delighted that the University has become a member of The Alan Turing Institute, which continues to reflect the key contribution of a remarkable pioneer to the modern field of data science across many disciplines’.

Professor Mark Spearing, Vice President (Research and Enterprise), commented on the importance of Data Science and AI for the university, saying ‘there is no area of our academic endeavour which is not connected to data science’. The Turing Institute’s area of expertise, however, reaches far beyond the application of AI and Data Science to solving the world’s great challenges, and also encompasses ethical and moral implications of these areas. Professor Sir Adrian Smith, Director and Chief Executive of the Turing Institute, welcomed the new Fellows.

Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Executive Director of the Web Science Institute (WSI) spoke about the long and substantial history of Data Science and AI research at Southampton, and expressed delight that the WSI will be; the centre of operations for Turing at Southampton; She continued with a message for researchers at Southampton: 'we will get the most out of our partnership with the Turing if we put time and effort into being part of it'.

Professor Helen Margetts, Turing Programme Director for Public Policy, spoke about the current work of the Turing in the area of public policy, and the strong potential for Data Science and AI to improve policy-making and service design, leading to more personalised services and more efficient and equitable allocation of resources. She stressed the importance of a robust ethical framework to deal with the new moral dilemmas that arise and to facilitate innovation. The Turing Public Policy Programme is working on all these issues with researchers across the partner universities.

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Twenty Southampton academics have been selected as Fellows of the Turing Institute, drawn from a range of academic departments from Ocean and Earth Sciences to Mathematical Sciences.
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