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Data Innovation Accelerator

Our vision

Our vision is to contribute to business strength in Wales through data science, and to inspire small companies to integrate data modelling, engineering and analysis into their day-to-day practices.

Our principles

  • to build upon research excellence at Cardiff University and existing strategic partnerships with industry and the public sector, to extend reach to SMEs
  • to strengthen the eco-system around data science application in Wales to address a gap in the provision for SMEs to build awareness, capacity and skills with limited resources
  • to provide data science expertise to co-develop solutions with companies through research and development projects, working collaboratively with companies, rather than providing a one-way service or consultancy.

Data innovation awareness

Access to big data is a key innovation of the 21st century. Advances in technology mean that high volumes of data are now generated, stored and communicated at an unprecedented scale, by all types of organisations and across all sectors.

These data often capture features of organisations and activities that were never previously recorded. In business, analysis of these data can identify patterns and features that provide new knowledge about a current or future product, market or service. This can lead to increased productivity and competitiveness.

Filling a gap in the current data ecosystem in Wales, we seek to systematically build data science awareness, capacity and skills within Welsh SMEs. SMEs may not have the scale of resources available to the public sector or large companies to trial new ways of working, or to invest in unproven business transformation, underpinned by data science.

Understanding data science

Data science is about integrating statistics and machine learning into the everyday practices of industry. Statistics are not just used for writing reports, but are integrated into decision-making processes, and into the development of products and services.

This requires the building of computational tools and products. Data science brings together a combination of statistics, business insights and coding.

Our experience

Cardiff University data science researchers have worked with a range of companies including Admiral on insurance telematics and Airbus on development of the company's cyber security products.