I-X

It’s easy to forget the digital revolution is really only in its infancy. The next wave of technologies based on artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), advanced robotics, augmented/virtual reality and health informatics will arguably have an even greater impact on our daily lives.  

We have an opportunity therefore to think more strategically about how to leverage these technologies to build a better future, by bringing together universities, business, government and the next generation of students and young people who will probably be most impacted by these technologies.  

“If we really are going to have businesses built on new technologies, how are we going to do that if the technology people and the business people don’t really understand each other and don’t really have very much interaction, which is kind of how it is at the moment?” asks Imperial’s Professor Eric Yeatman, a leading figure in micro-electro-mechanical systems and co-founder of Microsaic Systems PLC.

The coming wave of digital technologies will completely transform every single facet of our lives – how we learn and acquire new skills; our work and opportunities; our finances and legal affairs; how we travel and get around; our health and wellbeing; and how we spend our leisure and social time. We can already see this happening in the early stages of fundamental research, in what will eventually become these disruptive technologies – as Imperial Professor Peter Pietzuch, a leader in data-intensive software systems, observes.

“I’m a computer scientist and I find it fascinating how much computer science there is across the spectrum of disciplines – engineering, natural sciences, business, medicine. So much of that work uses computational methods, algorithmic methods, ML or advanced statistics at the very core of its activity.” 

Yet the question remains: are current university structures – which remain largely based around subject-specific departments, faculties and institutes – best placed to deliver this future?

Clearly collaboration already happens between disciplines now, and Imperial is a genuine leader in this area, for example in terms of the number of scientific papers co-written across disciplines, with industry and with international colleagues. But can we do more? 

Professor Yeatman comments: “We could try to gradually evolve our existing units, like departments, and indeed we are actively doing that. But that’s a very slow process and one way to hurry that along is to create a separate entity and create an atmosphere and culture whereby we put aside all of those silos. We don’t want to just inherit the culture that’s been evolving for the past 50 or 100 years; we want to start to develop our own culture from scratch.  

“With I-X we will create a testbed for different ways of running a university and the digital sector presents possibly the best opportunity to do this.”  

What is I-X?  

The ultimate vision for I-X is to deliver transformational research, teaching and innovation, co-locating staff, students and industry, to build a new model of co-discovery and co-creation in the digital space.  

There will be a major presence at Imperial’s White City Campus, which itself is part of the wider White City Innovation District, including cutting-edge startups, scaleup companies and multinationals such as Novartis and L’Oreal. But this will not only be a physical space: there will be strong digital presence, and a state-of-the-art environment for virtual collaboration. 

Crucially, I-X is not intended to be a new administrative structure, in the same way as a department or an institute, but a ‘mixed campus’ for a broad range of activities and projects. Staff and students will remain members of ‘home’ departments.  

I-X will be led by a multi-disciplinary team from across the College Faculties, including Professor Eric Yeatman (Electrical and Electronic Engineering) as Chair alongside Co-Directors Professor Peter Pietzuch (Computing), Professor Chris Tucci (Business School) and Professor Guy Nason (Mathematics). The board is completed by Professor Deborah Ashby (School of Public Health), Professor Aldo Faisal (Bioengineering and Computing), Dr Simon Hepworth (Enterprise) and Dr Mark Kennedy (Business School). 

“What we are increasingly hearing from our industrial partners is that they are looking for different ways of collaborating with universities, with greater focus on co-location and secondments,” Professor Pietzuch says, adding: “This can be difficult to do at present, due to all sorts of trivial reasons, such as difficulty getting people external to the university allocated with desk or lab space.”  

“With I-X we are less constrained and therefore can experiment with different kinds of engagement models: we can talk to an industrial partner and come up with a very bespoke model where we co-design either a research programme or research programme with an education component, which facilitates the training of students or company employees with particular skills or techniques that come out the research that happens. There are a number of avenues that can be explored. There’s certainly the appetite.” 

Since the next generation of technologies will impact each and every one of us in myriad ways, I-X will aim to engage not just industry but the public at large and local communities in London, for example, through the development of an apprenticeship in data science scheme. 

It will build on the success of existing programmes at White City - for example Imperial CodeLab, an after-school club for young people who are the first in their family to attend University, which uses interactive and creative coding projects to give them the opportunity to develop practical skills in problem-solving, creativity and computational thinking. 

Meanwhile, at the other end of the age spectrum, ‘What the Tech!?’ is an informal gadget workshop run by Imperial Business School students and aimed at local residents over 50 – who can drop-in and can bring along any device or online task they need help with. 

Professor Guy Nason, Chair in Statistics at Imperial, leads the Engagement component of I-X. He recently provided advice to the Government on the levelling-up agenda in a tech context and has experience of engaging industry and government in tech initiatives such as the COMPASS Doctoral Training Centre in Statistical Science. 

Preparing for a future of human-AI cooperation 

You might be forgiven for thinking that the next wave of AI, ML and automation driven technologies might reduce the need for human expertise in the future. But in fact, the opposite is true. Indeed research has suggested that AI will create as many jobs as it replaces. And it’s not just the research expertise in developing core capabilities and new technologies; professions such as finance, law and healthcare will be transformed by these technologies and so will need some embedded specialist expertise, for example in order to train and supervise AI and ML. Indeed, many of the most useful AI systems currently used in business require a ‘human-in-the-loop’ to be truly effective and stable.  

I-X will address these skills gaps with a cross-disciplinary model of innovative education. Founding partners from industry and the public sector will also be invited to engage actively in curriculum development as well as how teaching will be delivered.  

Professor Chris Tucci, who leads on the educational element of I-X, comments: 

“The demand is already there. If you look at computing, AI and business analytics, these programmes are massively oversubscribed. There’s also an executive education element, with people in business asking us: “How do I achieve digital transformation; where do I even start?” We’re seeing this intense interest from across the entire spectrum and that’s why we are trying to consolidate our offering, share resources and start some of our own programmes that will address some of these needs. There’s a lot of room to grow here.” 

I-X will create synergies between existing MSc courses in the area of AI/ML and data science across traditional departmental boundaries. This will not only provide a new way of working together across departments, but will also support the efficient and rapid development of new MSc courses in priority areas. Examples include new MSc courses in AI/ML, Applied ML, Data Centric Engineering, Data Science and AI for application areas in Health/Life Sciences Engineering/Business.  

I-X will also make rich use of digital technology for the delivery of education (including effective use of mixed-mode teaching models) but also in the design of the educational offering, for example, in the use of AI/ML and data analytics for personalisation and customisation of teaching and immersive learning using Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. 

The consolidation of teaching in this area and the digitalisation of teaching will provide opportunities for a substantial increase in student numbers in (and talent outflow from) related degree programmes at postgraduate level. In addition to teaching conventional full-scale Masters’ courses, I-X will provide ‘Mini-Masters’ MSc courses that can be dynamically created and retired, enabling a much quicker response to demand from students, industry and public sector. These ‘Mini-Masters’ MSc courses will be made available to staff from I-X’s founding partners, allowing them access to Masters-level education elements on a fast-tracked and bespoke basis, targeted at those that seek to upskill in domains of technology. Joint programmes developed with international partners will also be investigated.  

A portfolio of offerings, designed both for individual corporate partners and for general attendance, will provide an active response to the need for upskilling at all levels of career progression (including executive education). 

Professor Tucci concludes: “We don’t really know how things are going to evolve, so our idea is to enable the collaboration, put people physically together, have different stakeholders involved, including organisations, companies and government, then try and see what works, what doesn’t work, for the future of higher education. We’re not saying we’ve figured out what the university of future will look like, rather we’re putting together some kind of framework from which the university of future might develop.”