The University of Glasgow (www.glasgow.ac.uk) is one of four leading UK academic institutions to share a £14 million research grant aimed at boosting data science.

Each project will bring together statisticians and computer scientists taking a novel approach to challenges in data science, with funding provided by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

They will explore new ways of applying machine learning methods, plus how to develop algorithms to deal with large data and use novel mathematics to obtain meaning from the shape of data, as well as how feedback loops affect data in real time.

The £3 million project at Glasgow will focus on closed-loop data science for “complex computationally and data-intensive analytics”.

A team led by Roderick Murray Smith will examine human interactions with large and complex data sets — such as the overlap between the challenge someone faces when coping with all the choices involved in booking a flight and an expert running complex experiments in a laboratory.

The researchers will work with a number of partners, including JP Morgan, Skyscanner, Widex, the Urban Big Data Centre, the Data Lab and Glasgow Polyomics.

EPSRC chief executive Philip Nelson said: “Data pervades almost every aspect of modern life. Collectively, we are producing ever more data but we need the mathematical and systemic tools to deal with it quickly and accurately to make productive use of it.

“These projects will help scientists and businesses to make discoveries and better-informed commercial decisions.”