The Alan Turing Institute has been awarded £1.7M by UKRI to establish a national network of professionals who work in data, such as data stewards, data librarians, data wranglers and data engineers.
The People in Data project, funded for three years, aims to establish a professional data community hub across the UK’s data science ecosystem.
The project will work with a wide range of partners, including Health Data Research UK, ELIXIR-UK, Office of National Statistics and Natural History Museum, to bring together existing communities of people who work in data, the initiative will also create a space for data professionals who don’t fit into current community groups.
This national community will help people to share knowledge, resources and encourage cross-sector activities.
The project will also identify data skills gaps, with the aim of providing new training materials, and developing a business case for the sustainability of the data professionals network.
Unlocking the power of data has been central to many government strategies and is crucial to tackling some of the biggest challenges facing society.
However, making the best use of data has many challenges such as being incomplete, unreliable, or faulty. Poor quality data also impacts the insights that can be gained from AI and data science applications, as these rely on good quality data.
There is, therefore, a growing need to upskill the current workforce, and identify the skills needed by the next generation of data professionals.
Dr Ann-Marie Mallon, Director for Data for Research at The Alan Turing Institute, said:
“Convening a new community for people who work in data is crucial for enabling knowledge exchange, and creating a collaborative system in which data professionals can thrive. This exciting new project will help people who work in data to share their expertise to improve data literacy and identify the skills needed for data roles in the future.”
Sarah Cadman, Programme Director for Capacity Building, Health Data Research UK, said:
"As the National Institute for health data science, we connect data and expertise across the UK to make health data research and innovation happen at scale. Recognising the critical importance of fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange within the data science and technical community, we are delighted to support this important initiative."
Vince Smith, Head of Digital, Data and Informatics at the Natural History Museum said:
"Data skills have never been more relevant to addressing the challenges faced by our planet. New environmental sensors and data from our digital collections are generating a wave of new information on the natural world. I cannot think of a more important time to be linking up and training the next generation of data professionals."