Collaborate with data and AI

Is your business looking for expertise to unlock the potential of data , or do you need specialist help to develop new data-driven products, services or processes?

We provide advice, contacts, funding and project-delivery support to enable businesses like yours to both harness the power of data and collaborate with data science researchers and specialists, on innovative data projects.

Talk directly to our team

The Data Lab has a team of expert data scientists internally, and we can support you in understanding your data goals and identifying valuable data projects that can help move you forward. If you know what you want to do but aren’t sure of the language, or if you need help identifying your next steps, please get in touch.

Our internal data scientists can also provide direct support in delivering data projects.

• We can support your data science efforts by helping you apply for external funding.
• We can deliver up to 20 days of individual data-science support to help deliver a proof-of-concept project.
• We can offer mentoring support to an individual member of your team, something that can be valuable if the individual and/or the organisation are new to data science.

Come to us for support on collaborative projects

Thanks to our extensive network of academic and industry contacts, we can link you up with the expertise and collaborators you need (and potentially access the funding you require) to get your next data project underway. We can also supply professional project management staff to coordinate between you and your academic partners, and ensure your projects run smoothly.

The collaborative projects we help set up and run typically feature:

• One or more industrial partners focused on developing a new product / service.
• One or more university researchers (ranging from senior academics to research associates) at a Scottish university.
• Data scientists supporting or mentoring internal data-science teams.
• Projects vary in length, but are typically 3-12 months long.

Get funding for your project

We can help you access various funding streams for your next collaborative data science project.

What businesses can apply for funding?

Any sector or industry can apply for our collaborative project funding — ranging from oil and gas, healthcare, food and drink to tourism, agriculture and financial services companies. We help small, medium or large companies – as long as they have a registered office in Scotland.

Our business development team will help you develop your project ideas into fundable propositions.

Depending on the level of funding you’re seeking, your project will either be assessed by The Data Lab’s Innovation Advisory Board or by an internal Data Lab panel. (NB: SMEs normally make a cash contribution of 25% towards total collaborative projects costs, rising to 40% for large companies.)

The core requirements for collaborative project funding applications are as follows:

• Projects must have a clear economic impact (e.g. jobs, turnover) and/or positive societal outcome in mind.
• Your company must show a clear ability to execute the project. This can be demonstrated through previously delivered R&D projects, domain expertise, and commercial capabilities (including access to markets).
• The project must feature a novel and innovative application of data science/ AI techniques. This can be in the context of a particular industry sector.
• Project proposals should typically be within Technology Readiness Levels 3 to 6 (TRL)

Eligible companies may also be able to obtain innovation support from other sources including Scotland’s enterprise agencies (Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise), the Innovate UK and EU programmes. Where appropriate, we will help you identify appropriate external support schemes for the project you want to develop.

What sort of support can data and AI specialists provide?

Data science is anything that takes raw data and turns it into something that people can draw insight from. At its simplest, data science is the same as analytics, and provides static numbers, graphs, and trends within data to help identify key insights. Data science can also build dashboards, which are interactive visual tools that help a user self-select the information they need themselves. Or it can deliver advanced machine-learning models which may produce predictions, categorisations or even sentiment analysis from your data.

The type of support you can access will depend on both the data you collect and the insight that you need.