The University of Southampton has pioneered theoretical and methodological advances in Web Science through a rich interdisciplinary, cross-faculty network of research groups, and in collaboration with a range of expert external partners. Southampton’s commitment to Web Science has grown steadily through a series of strategic investments to produce a flourishing research environment. It has a number of partners and projects bringing unique expertise and authority to complement its expertise on Web Science. These include:
Data Pitch is a EU-funded open innovation programme bringing together corporate and public-sector organisations that have data with startups and SMEs that work with data.
It is centred around a competition with several tracks which describe challenges, and a virtual accelerator programme (6 months) to help startups and SMEs develop solutions to meet these challenges.
The startups and SMEs will put forward proposals for creating high impact, innovative products and services in response to the challenges defined by Data Pitch.
Successful applicants will receive an important financial and advisory boost to their idea, with support to develop a concept into a robust and sustainable business.
In the post-truth society we live in, experts must find novel ways to bring hard, factual data to citizens. Data must entertain as well as inform, and excite as well as educate. It must be built with sharing through social channels in mind and become part of our everyday activities and interactions with others. Data Stories will look at novel frameworks and technologies for bringing data to people through art, games, and storytelling. It will examine the impact that varying levels of localisation, topicalisation, participation, and shareability have on the engagement of the general public with factual evidence substantiated by different forms of digital content derived and repurposed from a variety of sources. It will deliver the tools and guidance that community and civic groups need to achieve broader participation and support for their initiatives at local and national level, and empower artists, designers, statisticians, analysts, and journalists to communicate with data in inspiring, informative ways.
The European Data Science Academy (EDSA) was an H2020 EU project that ran between February 2015 and January 2018.
The objective of the EDSA project was to deliver the learning tools that are crucially needed to close the skill gap in Data Science in the EU.
The Open Data Incubator for Europe (ODINE) was a 6-month incubator for open data entrepreneurs across Europe. The programme was funded with a £7.8m grant from the EUâs Horizon 2020 programme and was delivered by seven partners.
ODINE aimed to support the next generation of digital businesses and support them to fast-track the development of their products.
The PETRAS Internet of Things Research Hub is a consortium of nine leading UK universities which will work together over the next three years to explore critical issues in privacy, ethics, trust, reliability, acceptability, and security. Funding for the Hub includes a £9.8 million grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) which will be boosted by partner contributions to approximately £23 million in total. This project also runs in collaboration with IoTUK.
The PETRAS IoT Hub, is led by UCL and includes Imperial College London, Lancaster University, University of Oxford, University of Warwick, Cardiff University, University of Edinburgh, University of Southampton, and University of Surrey.
European cities face daily problems with the mobility of their inhabitants and visitors, as well as with the delivery of goods and services along their streets and connecting roads.
QROWD offers local government and transportation businesses innovative solutions to improve mobility, reduce traffic congestion and make navigation safer and more efficient. Better use of urban infrastructures and reduced travel times will improve the environment by curbing CO2 emissions – ultimately enhancing quality of life in European cities.
To achieve this, QROWD will integrate different sources of data – maximizing the value of Big Data in planning and managing urban traffic and mobility.
The SlideWiki EU project started in 2016 with seventeen partners from Europe and Brazil using the award-winning open-source SlideWiki platform from Germany as a basis. All project goals are aimed at creating a large scale accessible learning and teaching platform using educational technology, skill recognition and global collaboration.
SOCIAM - the Theory and Practice of Social Machines - is a major research programme funded by the EPSRC which aims to deliver greater insight into understanding and building the next generation of 'social machines'. These are part-technical and part-human systems that are co-created and develop capabilities ranging from solving routine tasks to handling emergencies. Led by the University of Southampton, SOCIAM also includes the University of Oxford and the University of Edinburgh.
STARS4ALL is a European project raising awareness about the negative effects of artificial light on human wellbeing, biodiversity, visibility of stars, safety and energy waste.
WDAqua aims to advance the field of data-driven question answering through a combination of training, research and innovation. Question answering is relevant to a diverse range of end users, and we will demonstrate this in settings including e-commerce, public sector information, publishing and smart cities.
A Web Observatory is a system which gathers and links to data on the Web in order to answer questions about the Web, the users of the Web and the way that each affects the other. The University of Southampton has developed Web Observatory software for hosting and sharing relevant datasets and analytic apps; a number of inter-connected installations are available including the one at Southampton University.