# 2021

## More

- NICD - execute business case
- NICD educate NU senior management on purpose
- Internal and external PR to drive funding***
- Training courses
- Better internal communication - sharing success stories across the faculty and university+1 *
- NICD engagement with students - developing smoother process for engaging on workshops and projects *
- Quarterly (or six monthly) meetings like this one - meaningful meetings with outcomes *
- Engaging with those close to Newcastle Data - OpenLab, UO, FMS data people + HASS
- Focussed research themes.
- Strategic teaching modules.***

## Less

- NICD - 'opportunistic research projects'
- Being on zoom all day! *

## Start

- Develop business model canvas for each area of activity a.k.a catfooding
- Engaging with schools
- Replacing or circumventing NUIT where possible/appropriate*
- NICD build national pipeline (marketing, etc)
- NICD workstream around educating c-suite
- Develop marketing/comms process for Newcastle Data *
- Marketing teaching and research as part of the Newcastle Data offer **
- Workload modelling for all academic staff. *
- Or all staff?
- Acknowledging each others hard work *
- Develop a sense of 'belonging' to Newcastle Data
- Develop a NICD value proposition for newcastle academics +1
- Value prop for Newcastle Data
- Consider hiring comms resource

## Stop

- Pro-bono project work

# SWOT analysis for Engagement

## Strengths
- NICD is a USP for Newcastle University, the city and the region*
- Comment: how to balance this with its national remit?
- Unique engagement model being proved through case studies*
- Clear market position*
- Effective business pipeline and processes
- Validatable ROI
- Repeatable model
- Immediately available data science resource (opportunistic projects)*
- Tangible asset for high level differentiation (large scale proposals)
- Building data science capacity and broadening skill set
- Creating effective external relationships
- Facilitating regional conversations (Local & Combined Authorities, NELEP, etc.)*
- Values – Quality; Dependability; Honesty;
- The Catalyst - unique collaboration/innovation space
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## Weaknesses
- NICD is not Teaching or Research…
- NU Execs unclear on NICD purpose…*
- Model of internal engagement with academics not working (yet) ****
- It is, sadly, worse than not working, academics see it as removing resources from the School
- Model of student engagement not working at scale (yet)***
- External pipeline slowing down (currently)
- No (real) national coverage**
- No (real) international coverage
- No (real) policy interventions
- Not ‘visibly leading’ (yet)*
- Scalability*
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## Opportunties
- Market Trends: continuing support in market for benefits of data science skills. NICD operates primarily at technical level -> opportunity to extend skills transfer to managerial level (e.g. NICD business focused workshops)*
- Strong hook here with National Skills Fund
- Gov Policy: Brexit and Huawei – changes demanded to existing supply chains and funding structure -> opportunity to extend NICD model to address national concerns (e.g. Bristol opportunity);
- Leveling-up: Geography… plus opportunity to be seen, and funded, as a high-end skills driver for leveling up.**
- Social Impacts: Covid shortening timeline to action -> opportunity to collaborate across many (pop-up) interventions with data science skills (e.g. Covid testing hub; DfT projects)*
- Diversification: Extend NICD skill set into exploring practical applied research questions (e.g. Turing ARC) -> opportunity to contribute to research, improve individual CPD and secure additional funding. **
- Clear processes for CDT students to engage with NICD*
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## Threats
- Future pipeline of external business… Covid and the ‘new normal’
- Pivot in use of Catalyst estate?
- Future ability to recruit exceptional talent… CDT ending **
- NICD unique model becoming passé… diluted by similar ideas
- NU leaders vision of NICD’s future… misunderstanding of NICD purpose
- Not core to NU strategy… funding temporary, at risk*
- Ability to market both the national and regional offers effectively
- New Faculty PVC (May 2021) have opinions
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# SWOT analysis for research

## Strengths
- Seen to be nationally leading in area
- Turing increases visibility & credibility
- Leading university theme and NUCoRE *
- RSE team *
- Lead to research for "Newcastle Data"
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## Weaknesses
- Large Grant income* *
- Visible leaders *
- "exploiting" MSc and CDT students**
- pull through of research into engagement? **
- exploiting Dstl
- exploiting NICD*
- Lack of connectivity with FMS?
- lack of programme of scalable activities - ie seminars/lab talks etc *
- intra-scalable collaboration
- is the regional business community aware of that we do?

- what's happening to Turing funding?
- visibility of other scalable people not Nick **
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## Opportunities
- Better understanding about research pressures/understanding WAM for those not involved in research *
- Huge value from commercial-focused research
- Capture impact from nucore activity **
- Lots of national funding for data science (esp. muti-disciplinary)
- Digital Nation
- Dstl
- NICD
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## Threats
- Lure of commercial salaries
- Internal politics at every level
- Pulled into providing service to other research groups?
- Group size? *

# SWOT analysis for Teaching

## Strengths
- Reputation with employers ***
- Reputation within University
- Positive feedback from students
- Good relationship with Faculty re: approval of new programmes quickly in response to demand.
- Studentships for CDT and MSc *
- MSc Data Science*
- Attracting talented students **
- Comment - JW
- PhD and MSc in Data Science good combination of offers to indsutry *
- Pipeline for NICD staff +DSTL + RSE team *
- Pastoral care **
- Talent pool is attractive for inward invest businesses *
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## Weaknesses
- Limited teaching staff *
- Limited demonstrator resource *
- IT resource
- Integration with Research *
- Faculty - lack of engagement at school level.*
- Students don't always integrate outside of CDT *
- Process of keeping in touch with alumni (CDT)
- Understanding points to interact with other elements of newcastle data
- CDT industry links could be better
- CDT expensive for industry to fund - long incubation for talent and no guarantee **
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- Poor school worlkload modelling
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## Opportunties
- Direct access to our students for employers
- Strong policy links
- Closely integrate RSE training activity with taught delivery
- Integrate more students into NICD Projects *
- Clear processes (eg NICD internship opportunities) *
- Future funding opportunities (e.g. region-/sector-specific) through National Data Strategy and 2bn National Skills Fund
- Matt's national leading role
- New CDTs in 2024 **
- Dstl projects
- Engagement with schools
- Could be part of a more complete data offer *
- New funding routes e.g. https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/apprenticeship-standards/artificial-intelligence-(ai)-data-specialist-v1-0
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## Threats
- Loss of staff to industry
- Pressure to increase student numbers and/or quality
- University bureaucracy (CDT) and Faculty *****
- Challenges recruiting academics in DS *
- Competition with other courses/institutions
- Application area (CCBD) has evolved - how relevant are we? (CDT)
- Loss of pipleline for NICD
- Institute of Coding - valuable funding route for employers but variable quality of delivery.
- Lack of clarity
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