Exploring Opportunities and Barriers in the Move Towards a 'Data-Driven' Society
Event details
Data driven tools are emerging across all domains, largely held under the banner of AI. This includes developments at the interface between academic research and policy implementation. Data science, as a much broader discipline, also requires us to consider the supporting ecosystem of infrastructure and principles that underpin data access and sustainability.
The UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Digital Solutions programme is funding a new national facility to connect environmental data with users in the public and private sector, covering health and climate use cases. Taking the unusual approach of asking what end users may need, in this talk we present outcomes from workshops held across the UK. We find remaining challenges centre around access and sustainable delivery and discuss the cultural dependencies on the research community. Links to emerging tools designed to predict, e.g., personal exposure are given, along with opportunities around search and discovery, opening a discussion around potential opportunities for more agile local policy implementation.