The LSE Data Science Institute (DSI) is proud to share details of a new transformative gift.
Alumnus Stuart Roden (BSc Economics 1984) and his family have pledged £3.7 million in support of the strategic activities of the DSI to unlock the potential of bringing together data and social sciences.
The visionary philanthropic investment will ensure that the DSI at LSE becomes the focal point for multi-disciplinary collaboration between data and social sciences to pioneer new solutions to the world’s biggest challenges.
This gift will enable the DSI to bring together LSE’s expertise and knowledge to shape the global data science debate, putting the focus on creating social impact. It will help transform the School’s teaching and research, embedding data science across key areas of our work to confront the big societal challenges that hard data science and technology research alone cannot resolve.
“I am delighted to support the work and ambitions of the nascent and growing Data Science Institute. The Institute, sitting within LSE, is uniquely placed to bring expertise and rigour to the global social science debate. I very much look forward to seeing the meaningful impact that the DSI will have on our society.”
Stuart Roden (BSc Economics 1984), Independent Member of LSE Council
“We are incredibly grateful to Stuart and his family for their generosity. This transformative gift will allow the School to embrace new technologies and modes of learning, and remain at the forefront of using data sciences for the betterment of society.”
Minouche Shafik, LSE Director
“We’re absolutely delighted at the gift and what it means for our Data Science Institute. This gives us a really solid basis now for getting an innovative, world-class data science research engine up and running, bringing data science methods to bear on social and economic analysis in a sound, social and scientific way.”
Professor Ken Benoit, Director of the LSE Data Science Institute
About the DSI
The DSI is integral to realising the ambitions at the heart of LSE 2030 as the School embraces new technology to keep the social sciences at the forefront of global thinking, solutions and impact.
This transformative gift from Stuart Roden and Family will enable the DSI to continue to pursue world leading research as showcased in REF 2021. An impact case study shared how research led by Professor Ken Benoit has underpinned the development of new and improved methods of quantitative text analysis for social science research.
The DSI will also lead LSE in the implementation of innovative ways of working through the establishment of a cloud computing lab and data visualisation studio. This will foster multi-disciplinary collaboration, bringing together LSE’s specialist expertise. This atmosphere of collaboration is evident in recent activities such as the inaugural event of the 'DSI Squared' initiative that connects LSE with Imperial College London, and Debugging (In)equality in Data Science workshop. This cutting-edge workshop, organised by DSI Affiliates from across LSE, investigated the emancipatory potential of data science.
Find out more
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