News

Keep informed with the latest updates from UBDC.
Brainstorming Data Dive promotes innovative social research

Brainstorming Data Dive promotes innovative social research

Researchers gathered in Glasgow for an innovative Data Dive, organised by the Urban Big Data Centre in collaboration with ESRC Smart Data Research UK. The aim of the event was to provide researchers with first-hand experience using smart data curated by UBDC and brainstorm new approaches and analyses.

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Introducing the Adzuna teaching dataset

Introducing the Adzuna teaching dataset

UBDC are excited to announce the launch of ‘Adzuna Teaching’, a small and random subset of our main Adzuna dataset. Adzuna Teaching makes Adzuna accessible to a wider audience, specifically students undertaking research projects and lecturers interested in employment or Smart Data. It will also be of interest to researchers thinking of applying for the full Adzuna dataset. Adzuna Teaching preserves the structure, and contains all variables, of our main Adzuna dataset. It therefore includes detailed information on salary, occupation, sector, seniority, skills, location, and job descriptions. See our Adzuna metadata for all variables included. The dataset represents a random 20,000 subsample of all (deduplicated) UK adverts posted on Adzuna.co.uk in the month of September 2021.

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UofG social scientists receive UKRI funding for data-driven research

UofG social scientists receive UKRI funding for data-driven research

UofG social scientists have received UKRI funding that will enable them to conduct data-driven research aimed at improving lives across Scotland and the UK

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Transport and mobility

Housing and property

Labour market

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With a growing selection of both licenced data and freely available open data, you can access the transformative power of smart data through our extensive data catalogue. We can also provide a range of tools to enhance your ability to collect or analyse smart data.

University of Glasgow

Centre of research excellence

From our base at the University of Glasgow, we capture, process and analyse vast amounts of smart data to inform our own research publications and to produce reliable and meaningful outputs on behalf of stakeholders and policymakers. 

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Our key milestones

January 2014

UK government announces a £14 million investment in the creation of the Urban Big Data Centre and two other data services, forming part of their Big Data Network. Founding Director is Professor Piyushimita (Vonu) Thakuriah.

September 2014

The official opening of UBDC with guest speaker Sir Alan Wilson, Professor of Urban Regional Systems in the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL.

September 2015

We welcome our first students to our new MSc Urban Transport programme.

January 2016

In collaboration with Innovate UK and TravelAI, we develop the CATCH! project (Citizens at the City’s Heart) enabling people to collect and share their own data with local authorities to improve transport planning.

August 2017

UBDC’s partnership with property website Zoopla commences, providing access to data from sales and rentals for the whole of Britain.

April 2018

Professor Nick Bailey takes over as Director of UBDC.

November 2018

‘Shaping Cities through Urban Analytics' conference brings together senior stakeholders from academia, Government, industry and the third sector to celebrate UBDC’s achievements in its first 4 years.

September 2019

We welcome our first students to our new MSc Urban Analytics Programme.

September 2019

UBDC and Glasgow City Council pilot system to make anonymised counts of pedestrians and traffic from the city’s public safety CCTV system

March 2021

UBDC’s partnership with Huq starts, providing academics with access to mobile phone app data with high spatial and temporal resolution.

March 2021

UBDC’s partnership with Adzuna starts, providing access to data on millions of job listings data for the whole UK.

October 2022

The IDEAMAPS participatory data-modelling project secures over $1.5m funding from the Gates Foundation. The project will co-design and develop a participatory data-modelling ecosystem to support local stakeholders and policymakers in lower middle-income countries.

November 2023

The ‘Waterproofing Data’ project, led by Professor João Porto de Albuquerque, wins the prestigious ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize. The project combines citizen-generated data with official sources, to increase community resilience in flood-prone areas.

January 2024

UBDC celebrates its 10th anniversary!

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