As digital technology permeates every area of modern life, we risk becoming over-dependent on complex systems that operate in an opaque way, creating a risk that they exhibit emergent properties that adversely affect their users or their wider environment. This is particularly true as developers increasingly rely on AI or ML techniques as a means to define system behaviour when the problem space is too complex or poorly understood for human developers to explicitly specify that behaviour. We are tackling incompletely understood problems by developing systems whose behaviour and wider impact are by necessity also incompletely understood. This trend, which is largely enabled by an abundance of data harvested from (e.g.) mobile devices, sensors and social media, is radically changing how systems are developed and how they are used. We need a new approach to software engineering that (i) places greater emphasis on making explicit the risks of unintended behaviour for innovative new software products either through limitations on our understanding of the envisioned product's behaviour or through misuse, and (ii) actively supports explainability of the exposed behaviour by the running system. Twenty20Insight is an interdisciplinary project bringing together academic experts in Software Engineering (SE), RE, Design Thinking and ML to help system stakeholders and developers understand and reason about the impact of intelligent systems on the world in which they operate.

As digital technology permeates every area of modern life, we risk becoming over-dependent on complex systems that operate in an opaque way, creating a risk that they exhibit emergent properties that adversely affect their users or their wider environment. This is particularly true as developers increasingly rely on AI or ML techniques as a means to define system behaviour when the problem space is too complex or poorly understood for human developers to explicitly specify that behaviour. We are tackling incompletely understood problems by developing systems whose behaviour and wider impact are by necessity also incompletely understood. This trend, which is largely enabled by an abundance of data harvested from (e.g.) mobile devices, sensors and social media, is radically changing how systems are developed and how they are used. We need a new approach to software engineering that (i) places greater emphasis on making explicit the risks of unintended behaviour for innovative new software products either through limitations on our understanding of the envisioned product's behaviour or through misuse, and (ii) actively supports explainability of the exposed behaviour by the running system. Twenty20Insight is an interdisciplinary project bringing together academic experts in Software Engineering (SE), RE, Design Thinking and ML to help system stakeholders and developers understand and reason about the impact of intelligent systems on the world in which they operate.

This 44-month project will establish "LPIP Strategic Co-ordination Hub - What Works Centre for Place" as the Local Policy Innovation Partnership (LPIP) Strategic Co-ordination Hub. This will involve bringing together a network of people/organisations who have successfully delivered on place partnerships, engagement, impact, and translational research. The Hub is a national consortium, led by the University of Birmingham, convening stakeholders across the research and policy ecosystem. It is concerned with drawing together understanding of local challenges, and formulating solutions, across the UK through an innovative and effective service-driven approach to place-based policy making and public service delivery. It is designed to lead to a step-change in the quality and impact of the evidence created by universities and their local place partners. Our approach is based on extending and accelerating learning UK-wide from the successful and highly regarded place-based West Midlands Regional Economic Development Institute (WMREDI) partnership. The delivery team will be led by a leadership team, comprising staff from the University of Birmingham, the University of the West of England and Inner Circle Consulting (non-academic Co-Investigator) and a wider network team of 13 delivery partners (a mix of academics and non-academics from different geographical areas and with contrasting thematic specialisms) with a track record of rigorous high-quality engaged research relevant to local policy and practice. The Hub will work with local LPIPs and partnership communities in their places, embedding co-design and co-production. It will develop a programme of capacity-building activities looking at the thematic challenges places face and what works in place partnerships. It will respond to the needs of LPIPs and government. An Advisory Board made up of government and the wider place ecosystem partners and research assets will champion and guide the delivery of the Hive and the broader LPIP programme, as well as peer reviewing applications for funding from the Hub. The Hub will: - Tackle the gap in linking the 'local' with the 'national' in policy development by linking with policy makers at different geographical scales and across policy domains. - Model and scale up innovative and effective practice and deepen the collective knowledge base, so cultivating common purpose and collective intelligence in meeting the needs of places in all parts of the UK. - Act as a front door to national policy stakeholders - Use a 'service' mindset, which starts from the needs of users and designs products and services with their active involvement. - Use a careful balance of intellectual ambition (curiosity to understand what works) with engagement expertise to create the conditions for purposeful partnership working across different constituencies, including LPIP teams, policy makers, researchers, and citizens. - Provide training, secondment and learning opportunities. - Assess the transferability of methods and findings across the LPIP network (and beyond). The Hub will be successful if it has helped shape and grow a thriving place ecosystem that is: - addressing the challenge of making local places 'successful'; and where - government (nationally and sub-nationally) is working with the Hub to share data and enhance policy approaches to take account of place needs; and - UKRI and stakeholders see the LPIP programme pathway as an effective way of expanding place-based activities and programmes.