Urban Big Data Centre (UBDC)

Duration: 01/14 - 01/24

One of the key challenges for businesses, local authorities and service providers in cities is the limited information available to inform their decision-making. The Urban Big Data Centre (UBDC) seeks to address this by exploring new ways to collect and apply data in business and urban planning.

The UBDC brings together a range of expertise in urban social sciences and data science to promote a holistic, cross-sectoral approach to its research. It combines a series of projects focused on methodological issues, including modelling, visualising and integrating different datasets, with several in-depth studies on specific urban concerns such as transportation, housing, education, migration and social exclusion.

As a result, while developing an array of cutting-edge tools and resources, the Centre will also apply this knowledge practically to a number of key research areas. Its findings will support businesses, local authorities and service providers as they respond to the increasing complexity of today’s cities.

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Piyushimita (Vonu) Thakuriah (Principal Investigator and Professor of Urban Studies)
Dyaa Albakour (Postdoctoral Researcher)
Konstantinos Ampountolas (Lecturer in Transportation Engineering)
Nick Bailey (Associate Director)
Adrian Bowman (Professor of Statistics)
Soumyadeb Chowdhury (Postdoctoral Researcher)
Nema Dean (Lecturer in Statistics)
Chris Dibben (Chair in Geography)
Md. Sadek Ferdous (Research Assistant)
Bernard Fingleton (Director of Research)
Richard Harris (Professor of Quantitative Geography)
Jinhyun Hong (Lecturer in Transportation Planning)
Joemon Jose (Professor of Information Retrieval)
Keith Kintrea (Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies)
Duncan Lee (Reader in Statistics)
Zhenhong Li (Professor of Civil Engineering and Geoscience)
Catherine Lido (Research Associate)
Nut Limsopatham (Postdoctoral Researcher)
Mark Livingston (Programme Manager)
David McArthur (Lecturer in Transport Studies)
Craig MacDonald (Lord Kelvin Adam Smith Fellow in Sensor Systems)
Geoff Meen (Professor)
Claire Miller (Senior Lecturer in Statistics)
Yashar Moshfeghi (Research Associate)
Michael Osborne (Professor – Chair of Adult and Lifelong Education)
Iadh Ounis (Reader in Computing Science)
Joseph Persky (Professor)
Gwilym Pryce (Professor of Urban Economics and Social Statistics)
Marian Scott (Professor of Environmental Statistics)
Katarzyna Sila-Nowicka (Research Associate in Urban Methods, Modelling and Simulations)
Nigel Sprigings (Lecturer in Urban Studies)
Nebiyou Tilahun (Assistant Professor)
Peter Triantafillou (Chair of Data Systems Engineeering)
Wenjie Wu
Jing Yao (Lecturer in Urban Big Data and Quantitative Methods)
Moira Zellner (Associate Professor)

Extensive data gathering through a series of surveys on travel, education, mobility, beliefs and stated preferences.

Collation of multidimensional sources such as media, video and infrastructure-based sensor data into a holistic Glasgow Memories Server.

An integrated research tool combining structured and unstructured information that enables users to research the connections between urban environment, social context and other behaviours.

Showcasing data for improving cities
6 March 2019

Delving deeper into subsurface data
20 September 2018

Educational trajectories and place-based disadvantage: looking deeper and wider
15 February 2018

Shaping data standards for future cities
9 June 2017