Blogs

On the occasion of May Day, here is another set of random reflections for your perusal:

In some parts of the world, today is April Fool’s Day; any action is suspect on this occasion. Another set of random reflections below, however, are authentic:

I was pleased to be amongst those invited to a discussion on the Future of Cities in Glasgow on Friday 14 March, run by the Government Office for Science, and chaired by the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Mark Walport, and Sir Alan Wilson, Professor of Urban and Regional Systems at University College London and Chair of the Future of Cities Lead Expert Group.

I am delighted that there remains hope about new possible constructs that we can work on in terms of economics, health and sustainability. But in terms of social exclusion we need to recognise the costs that are already associated with the present human construct around development and the truly awful human costs associated with what we are doing.

Today the UK Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts MP, announced the release of £14 million to fund the second phase of the ESRC's investment in Big Data. At a speech at the High Performance Computing and Big Data Conference, Mr Willetts outlined what steps are being taken to strengthen the UK’s competitive advantage in Big Data.