Edinburgh Futures Institute welcomed the first cohort of partners and members to its co-location spaces this autumn.
The opening of the historic landmark building in June 2024 has been marked by a range of activities welcoming the public, students and staff of the University, and local and regional stakeholders and organisations.
The Futures Institute recently hosted the Edinburgh International Book Festival which makes its permanent home in the building. The excitement of over 70,000 people wandering through the newly renovated spaces over the summer gave way to the bustle of the University’s Welcome Week and start of term – where new and returning students were greeted on campus and online.
Just as importantly, September marked a big milestone for the Institute’s core mission to support collaboration on social challenges and bring public, private, and third sector practitioners together with researchers, students, and civic society to tackle complex problems.
With the opening of the sector and commercial ward spaces and the creation of clusters of co-located research, industry and third sector organisations throughout the building, the Futures Institute is on its way to realising this vision.
Regional impact through data-driven innovation
The Futures Institute is part of the University of Edinburgh’s commitment to enabling inclusive economic growth at a regional and national level by supporting organisations to engage with Data-Driven Innovation (DDI).
Through the DDI programme, Edinburgh Futures Institute has a remit across four sectors that are critical to the local and regional economy: Financial Services and Fintech, Public Services, Creative Industries, and Tourism, Festivals and Travel.
“One of the key ways that the Institute supports this work is by making space for organisations to co-locate all or part of their teams in the newly opened building – alongside researchers, cross-sector partners and students and academics.
This is much more than a commercial real estate proposition – it’s about curating an innovation ecosystem by bringing in organisations that have the interest, capacity and potential to engage meaningfully with each other, and with the University’s research communities and students.”
– Douglas Graham, Director, Business Engagement and Partnerships, Edinburgh Futures Institute
Joining an ecosystem of collaboration
Crucial to the opportunity is the placement of organisations and businesses alongside innovative work in areas that will affect them in the future. This wider ecosystem includes University of Edinburgh projects and centres which put research expertise and know-how alongside businesses, entrepreneurs, and practitioner and community focused work.
The Institute brings together experts from different fields to collaborate on complex challenges and produce outcomes that have practical applications and policy relevance. These innovative groups harness the diverse perspectives and methodologies of different disciplines to foster innovation, analyse complex problems, and advance knowledge.
The approach encourages conversations and engagement with the public around themes such as AI and data ethics, innovative finance, sustainability and net zero.
The Futures Institute’s ecosystem ranges from new initiatives focused on the responsible use of data and AI, to projects and centres exploring digital education, the role of creativity and the arts for human flourishing, understanding how digital innovation can impact and change our communities and civic lives and how and why we should invest in sustainable critical infrastructure.
“We are building a collaborative environment where sharing knowledge and resources with external partners across the Institute becomes the first step to create innovative solutions to intractable and complex issues from the ethical use of AI to the challenges of incorporating digital technology in education. Nurturing the environment in the Futures Institute to make these powerful connections and conversations come alive – across research areas, practitioners and communities, and our partners and members – is part of the mission.”
– Professor Enda Delaney, Director of Research, Edinburgh Futures Institute
Mutual benefits
There are numerous ways for Partners to be involved in, and benefit from, what the University and the Futures Institute has to offer. The benefits are reciprocal and extend to organisations and research centres as well as students.
For example, students take on challenge projects with selected organisations – providing analysis or research to help solve a problem for a business or sector. The student gains valuable experience, and the business benefits from access to new talent and methods. The Futures Institute provides tailored support to help develop potential projects from a range of different disciplines with focus on helping organisations use data innovatively and ethically.
Edinburgh Futures Institute students on all 13 postgraduate programmes, learn core data skills, including knowledge of data ethics, and are supported to develop creative and entrepreneurial approaches to problem-solving.
Partners and members – connected and co-located
Over the last few years, the Futures Institute, with support from Edinburgh Innovations, has engaged with a wide range of organisations from across different areas of industry and sectors. Many are now co-locating their teams within one of five Partner and Member office spaces within the former wards of the renovated Old Royal Infirmary.
Some of the new spaces are organised by sector, creating four specialist, sector-focused innovation hubs. But there is also space for organisations that do not fit neatly within these sectors and bring a cross-cutting interest or expertise to the whole ecosystem.
These cluster spaces are shaping up with a diverse range of partners, for example:
- Financial services and fintech: abrdn, Aveni, Fintech Scotland, Natwest Group, PANTA, and Synechron.
- Public services: Architecture & Design Scotland, Innovation Unit, Nesta, Police Scotland, Public Health Scotland, and Scottish Violence Reduction Unit
- Creative industries: Activity Stream, Brightside Studios, Create Future, TakeNote, and Ray Interactive
- Multi-sector: Codebase, Electronic Data Research and Innovation Service, Research Data Scotland, Scottish Centre for Administrative Data Research, Smart Data Foundry
The hub for Tourism, Festivals and Travel innovation will launch over the next quarter with partners joining the cluster spaces then. The Futures Institute team is continuing to review a long list of applicants from across all the sectors and beyond. More important than sector affiliation is whether an organisation will be a good fit, how they benefit and what they will bring to the wider ecosystem.
Further links and information
Ecosystem research centres and hubs
