The Centre for Data, Culture & Society draws together researchers across disciplines, schools, organisations and domains. We regularly work with external partners and act as a point of contact for organisations that may wish to develop projects in partnership.
In addition, we are affiliated with other research centres and initiatives across the University of Edinburgh.
We work closely with the EFI, a new data-led innovation hub at the University of Edinburgh. Currently a virtual institute, EFI will lead the way in the human, organisational, social, cultural and institutional aspects of data driven innovation. CDCS supports the development of the Institute and CDCS Director Melissa Terras plays a key role as EFI Director of Research.
We are currently developing a text-mining platform in collaboration with the Research Services team (Information Services) and High Performance Computing experts at the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre.
Information Services also provide technical training for our research community, and partner with us on a number of small development projects.
CDCS is represented on the ATI Digital Humanities Interest Group by Professor Melissa Terras.
CDCS is an Associate Partner in this project, co-financed by the INTERREG Atlantic Area programme, whose main result will be to produce new Management and Sustainability Plans (PGS) for all World Heritage sites included in the project.
The University of Edinburgh is a founding partner in the new READ-COOP which oversees the development of the Transkribus platform. Melissa Terras is on the Board of Directors of READ-COOP.
We partner with IASH to offer funded Digital Scholarship Visiting Fellowships and Digital Scholarship Postdoctoral Fellowships each year.
Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute and Mixed Reality Lab (University of Nottingham)
Dr Lachlan Urquhart, CDCS Lead for Law, is a visiting researcher at the Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute and works closely with the Mixed Reality Lab. He is currently Co-I on a shared EPSRC-funded project 'Defence Against the Dark Artefacts' looking at technical, sociological & legal requirements for effective smart home cybersecurity.
In partnership with the Digital Scholarship Service, we support the use of the Library’s Data Foundry and work together on training initiatives. We also collaborate with the Library on projects on a regular basis, most recently on a creative project to 3-D scan and then render parts of the library building hidden under their public reading rooms on George IV Bridge.
Dr Jen Ross, who leads our Digital Cultural Heritage cluster, and Melissa Terras are supervising a PhD project in partnership with the National Galleries of Scotland, titled “Unlike a Version: The lives of digitised artworks”. CDCS PhD affiliate Eleanor Capaldi is undertaking the project, exploring the meanings and movements of digitised artworks in the context of NGS’ collections.
Dr Lachlan Urquhart is Co-I on an ESRC-AHRC-funded project in partnership with the Network. ‘Emotional AI in Commerce, Civic Life and Security In Japan and the UK’ will explore governance of affective computing in different contexts of everyday life.
We are part of the Edinburgh Carpentries initiative, and work with the Software Sustainability Institute to support the development of Data and Software Carpentries across the University and the city.
We have a strong working relationship with LUC and in particular the Centre for Research Collections and the Digital Library team. We regularly collaborate on developing events and digitisation training to ensure that the research community can access, analyse and explore the University of Edinburgh's rich and varied collections. Many of the images on our site are 'mash ups' from LUC collections.
The EFI will be where our world-class interdisciplinary expertise in social and data science, the arts, and humanities meets the external organisations that are tackling society’s most pressing needs. Through teaching, research and engagement, a key part of the EFI mission is to interrogate how data creates disorder and opportunities within the economy, creative industries and policy.
EDINA is a world-class centre for digital expertise, based at the University of Edinburgh. The centre develops, hosts and delivers trusted digital services developed for UK education and research, for government and public bodies, for communities locally and globally.
Library and University Collections (L&UC) is responsible for the University of Edinburgh’s digital and physical collections. They work in partnership to deliver the services that bring our collections to the university community and the wider public. It has five sections: Digital Library and Library Research Support, Collections Development & Access, Special Collections, Museums and Library Academic Support.
The Digital Cultural Heritage Network brings together colleagues from across the University and the cultural heritage sector in a professional network for people investigating digital cultural heritage issues. Since 2016, it has hosted events and activities aimed at creating new research relationships across and beyond the University.
The Software Sustainability Institute cultivates and improves research software to support world-class research, including in the arts, humanities and social sciences. The SSI provides guidance, training, community initiatives, policy, and tools to researchers and research software engineers to help achieve a vision of “better software, better research”.
Credit Research Centre is an impartial research group devoted to the study of credit. It is independent of credit granting organisations and engages in both theoretical and highly applied research of interest to all stakeholders in the industry, including lenders, credit suppliers, credit scoring organisations, borrowers and government agencies.
Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy (CRISP) research focuses on the political, legal, economic and social dimensions of the surveillance society with current projects relating to big data and technology. CRISP’s core aim is to generate and disseminate new knowledge about ‘information, surveillance and privacy’.
The Centre for Research Collections (CRC) is an access point for the University’s cultural and heritage collections, including archives, art, manuscripts, musical instruments and rare books. Key services include digitisation and Image Licensing; access to collection data sets (in development) and digital Preservation advice.
Digital Research Services provide a single point of access to all data and computing services available to researchers at the University of Edinburgh.
A wide range of digital research services are available for use across the research lifecycle. Resources are available to support data-intensive and computational research. Alongside case studies that demonstrate how resources can be used, Digital Research Services also provide information on access, requirements and costs, and information about how researchers can develop their digital research skills.
The Data Science and Digital Humanities Special Interest Group aims to bridge the gap between the communities of Data Science and Digital Humanities by encouraging collaborations across the two research areas and by providing thought-leadership at the national and international level. The group’s position within The Alan Turing Institute, the UK national research institute in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.
The Neuropolitics Research Lab produces transdisciplinary research, utilizing developments in the cognitive neurosciences, to shed new light on political attitudes, identities and decision-behaviours.
The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh is one of the world's premier Institutes for Advanced Study. They support innovative research and public engagement activities across the arts, humanities, social sciences and beyond, through a range of interdisciplinary and international projects and programmes. Digital Humanities and Digital Scholarship represent a rapidly growing focus of research and public engagement within IASH.
The Centre for Research in Digital Education brings together work under four themes: Digital Cultures; Children & Technology; Data Society; and Data Education in Schools. They are interested in how research and practice in education intersects with technology, and the impact of this on culture, policy and pedagogy. Their work investigates how education is shaping, and is shaped by, technological change.
The Edinburgh Language Technology Group (LTG) is a research and development group working in the area of natural language processing and engineering. They focus on building practical solutions to real problems in text mining and analysis, and work in all areas of large-volume text handling.
The Centre for the History of the Book (CHB) is as an international and interdisciplinary centre for advanced research into all aspects of the material culture of the text - its production, circulation, and reception from manuscript to electronic text.
Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC) provides supercomputing and data services to industry and academia. Its combination of staff expertise, large-scale computing power, and data storage capacity is unrivalled in the UK.
The centre for Design Informatics draws on Edinburgh’s unique combination of strengths in Informatics and Design, to inspire, equip and nurture a new generation of design-informatics researchers, practitioners and entrepreneurs.
The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) is an internationally-recognised centre of expertise in digital curation with a focus on building capability and skills for research data management. The DCC provides expert advice and practical help to research organisations wanting to store, manage, protect and share digital research data.
