The Alan Turing Institute
Our Roadmap for Science and Innovation
Andrew Blake, Institute Director
November 2015
The Alan Turing Institute
The Alan Turing Institute (ATI) is an independent charity for research. It has been established as a
Joint Venture (JV) whose founding partners are the Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford,
UCL and Warwick and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The Institute’s
founding belief is the power of data to transform the way we live and on the need to go beyond the
data itself, however big, to address the analysis of data leading to consequent actions.
Technical capability needs also to address its societal context so we aspire to a connected world that
serves society’s needs. It has to have intelligence built in, but in a way that caters to the people that
use it. It should be designed not to impose its technology on us, but to respect our values and
support our activity. We want it to be trustworthy, respectful of our privacy, and making use of our
data in a way that is transparent and open.
Our vision is of a national institute in data science, competing with the best internationally, and
driven by mathematical and computational sciences. Our mission is fourfold:
 Research into the fundamentals of algorithms for data science, from a broad perspective
of mathematical, computational and social science;

Training the next generation of researchers in data science, through doctoral training and
continuing professional development;

Translation by addressing ways in which fundamental advances in science can be taken
into practice;

Collaboration with partners including universities, companies, public bodies and charities.
The independence of the ATI as a standalone institute gives it a unique opportunity to convene and
innovate. To facilitate the sharing of data the ATI envisages convening groups of interested parties
over topics such as security, privacy and the ethics of data science.
Fig 1. The ATI Joint Venture and its founding partners.
The Institute’s headquarters or “Hub” is situated at the British Library, in the heart of London's
growing knowledge quarter. The British Library is collaborating with us over building first class
infrastructure in central London and in sharing some of our values around data science, especially in
access to and interpretation of knowledge. A vibrant activity will be developed at the Hub, and set
up for strong research engagement with the JV universities. We are also engaging with Strategic
Partners, organisations that share our vision and wish to partner closely with us in delivering our
core mission. The ATI aims further to be inclusive and to support activities which draw in other
universities and organisations.
Building our Scientific and Innovation Strategy
The ATI is developing its strategy through a combination of top-down and bottom-up planning. Top
down planning defines the scope of the programme according to the ATI’s founding principles, and
in line with major forces in our environment such as societal challenges, government and regulatory
issues, and the interests of Strategic Partners. The ATI is committed to first-class, world leading
mathematical and computational science, so bottom up activity in understanding the research
strengths of those who are committed to the ATI is critical. We are currently exploring these
strengths through a series of scoping workshops and through expressions of interest from
prospective seconded academics and from prospective Research Fellows. We are also focussing
particularly on additionality – steering towards areas of research which are especially and uniquely
enabled by the Institute’s ability to draw partners together. By pulling these sources of data together
we will create the research programme for a world-class institute that builds on the strengths of its
research staff, and gives them essential space for exploratory and innovative scientific thinking.
Fig 2. The broad landscape of research at the ATI. Research activity is driven by mathematical and
computational sciences, is founded on an array of research areas as in the blue annulus. It is rooted
and guided by application domains in the green annulus and ATI will draw considerations of ethics
through all the research that we do.
Scientific landscape and impact
The ATI is driven by its core capability in mathematical and computing sciences. The broad roadmap
of these capabilities is shown in the inner, blue annulus of fig 2 below, with applied areas of
influence shown in the outer, green annulus. Mathematics underpins much of what we plan to do,
especially topics such as numerical analysis, probability theory, topology and graph and network
theory. We aspire to serve society’s needs so it is natural to incorporate social sciences, ethics and
design into the Institute's research fabric.
At this early stage in the Institute’s development the full spectrum of topics is under consideration.
Perhaps one of the most exciting intellectual drivers for the ATI is bringing together the disciplines of
computer science and mathematical science, for example by combining estimation theory with
considerations of computational complexity and via link topics such as probabilistic programming.
The full palette of applications and areas of influence from the outer annulus (fig 2) is in play and
acts both as an inspiration for scientific problems, as an anchoring influence in keeping the science
realistic, and as a source of domains for the testing of theories and prototypes. There are more
applications competing for attention than can be addressed in depth, so the ATI’s attention will
substantially be influenced by the Strategic Partners that join us, especially in the early stages.
Whichever application domains we do engage with, the ATI will look for key underlying technologies
and issues, such as privacy and security, automated inference, graph processing and pattern
retrieval, that are generic across a number of domains.
Our partners
In the early stages of the Institute, we are particularly concentrating on connecting with Strategic
Partners, who are signed up to the core aims of the Institute, and will help us develop our Scientific
and Innovation Strategy. As the Institute and its strategy and staffing develop, the scientific
landscape will progressively be focused, and the ATI will look also to other forms of partnership.
These will include Programme Partners who contribute to the broad aims of the institute as well as
having specific interests in data analytics, and also Project Partners that may be companies or other
bodies, large and small, with specific problems they want to address. Project grants across the ATI
Hub and the JV universities are also envisaged, funded by research councils and other funders.
Translating our work into practice.
The role of application domains is key to the Institute’s translation strategy. The ATI will address
application domains strategically, top ensure that efforts scale, and this will be achieved by seeking
an element of generality. We will aspire therefore in our application and translation work to
concentrate on building software platforms and tools and field testable prototypes. This will
complete an essential pipeline of talent from foundational and mathematical, through
computational to applied work and engineering. It should enable ideas from researchers in
foundational topics to have clear economic and societal impact.
Our aim is to work primarily on open source tools, and make major contributions to mainstream
data science platforms and datasets, under the ATI brand. Our bet is that this approach will be
effective in powering translation and addressing the notorious valley of death in technology transfer.
Approach to IP and data
The ATI will generally take an open approach to IP, preferring to publish in the open literature and to
make available data and software through unrestrictive licences. Indeed, data repositories and open
source software are envisaged as principal outputs of the Institute. Where a particular collaboration
requires it, the ATI may delay publication and allow IP protection to be put in place, though this is
likely to be the exception rather than the rule. Similarly, the ATI will have the capability to hold data
confidentially, where appropriate, for example for reasons of privacy or proprietary ownership.
Conclusion.
The ATI is forming a strategy to build a world-class data science institute to serve as a UK national
facility in data science research. In the current early phase of the Institute, our activity is focussed on
putting the basic structure, programmes and staff in place. As we develop, we will address in more
detail issues such as broader participation by the UK university sector, continuing professional
development and alternative forms of training, hosting visitors, and international activity. By the
autumn of 2016 we plan to have all of the main facets of our activity – research, translation, training
and collaboration – underway and well established to bear fruit in the years beyond.