The Alan Turing Institute

Economics Department and LEEP Institute win prestigious Turing Award

The University of Exeter Business School is delighted to announce that through collaboration between the Economics Department and the Land, Environment, Economics and Policy Institute (LEEP), the research team has been awarded a prestigious Turing-HSBC-ONS Economic Data Science Award.

Dr Namhyun Kim confirmed:

“Our research team, which consists of Professor Ian Bateman (Lead Investigator, Director of the LEEP Institute), Dr Namhyun Kim (Lecturer in Economics, University of Exeter Business School), Professor James Davidson (Professor of Econometrics, University of Exeter Business School), Dr Patrick Saart (UK External Investigator), Dr Carlo Fezzi (Co-Investigator, LEEP Institute), Dr Solmaria Halleck-Vega (Research Fellow, LEEP Institute) and Professor Yingcun Xia (National University fo Singapore) are very pleased to be awarded one of the first prestigious Turing-HSBC-ONS Economic Data Science Awards. Our research will construct a new dataset and novel statistical (machine learning) framework to assess; (i) the relative importance of socioeconomic and biophysical drivers of land use in the UK; (ii) policy impacts on land use decision; (iii) the effect of dramatic changes in UK weather patterns on land use. The wider objective of the research is to catalyse the use of economics and data science to improve understanding of how the land economy works and develop decision support tools to improve Government policy. We expect that this project will deliver both important academic contributions (by shifting understanding and advancing scientific method, theory and application) and economic and societal impact (by shedding light on the dynamic evolution and determinants of UK's land use).”

The Turing-HSBC-ONS Economic Data Science Awards 2018 is a new collaboration between HSBC and the Office for National Statistics (ONS), headed by the Turing’s economic data science research programme, which invited proposals for research in economic data science, to improve our understanding of how the economy works. The three main themes sought for proposals were economic activity over the business cycle, the future of work and machine learning for economic data. Awards of up to £150,000 were available for projects lasting between six and twenty-four months.

Further information can be found via the link: https://www.turing.ac.uk/news/turing-hsbc-and-ons-collaborate-economic-data-science-awards

Date: 27 September 2018