Turing Data Study Groups

The Alan Turing Institute is partnering with the University of Birmingham to deliver Turing Data Study Groups in 2021/2022

Turing Data Study Groups (DSGs) are intensive, collaborative hackathons that bring together organisations (Challenge Owners or CO's) from industry with talented, multi-disciplinary researchers from academia. The CO's provide real-world problems and datasets to be tackled by carefully selected researchers who brainstorm and engineer data science solutions and present their work at the end of the study group. For challenge owners, the DSG will quickly prototype possible solutions to their data science challenges. For researchers the DSG is an opportunity to put knowledge into practice and go beyond individual fields of research to solve real world problems. The DSG may also help initiate further industry collaborations; the ideas generated can be a seed for kick-starting larger collaborative research projects.

A typical DSG will address approximately 6 data challenges, with around 50 volunteer researchers taking part. Due to ongoing COVID-19 precautions, DSG's in 2021 will run remotely over three weeks with optional precursor events during the first week and the study group itself over weeks two and three.

The DSG Format

The Precursor Week

The precursor stage will take place over one week, in the week prior to the DSG.

  • The maximum time commitment during the precursor week is 2.5 hours a day which will take place over lunchtimes or early evenings only.
  • Precursor activities will include online workshops, presentations and team building exercises to prepare participants for the DSG.

The Data Study Group

  • Remote DSG's will run over two weeks. It is a full-time commitment with core working hours of 9-5 BST every weekday. Optional social activities will be organised over evenings. 
  • Research participants will work together as a group for the duration of the DSG to tackle the challenges, compile a comprehensive report and will present their findings to CO's on the final day of the study group.
  • DSG Principle Investigators will then spend around 1 month refining the reports before they are presented to the participating companies to take forward.

Further information

Learn more about Turing Data Study Groups.

Apply to become a research participant in the UoB Turing Study Group.