University College London and Elsevier Launch the UCL Big Data Institute

LONDON, December 18, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

University College London (UCL) and Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced they will establish the UCL Big Data Institute as part of a new collaboration to explore innovative ways to better serve needs of researchers through the exploration of new technologies and analytics as applied to scholarly content and data.

Elsevier believes linking analytics and scientific content is one of the key enablers to better serve scientists and the company will fund research and studentships through the new Institute, offering exciting new opportunities to research the analysis, use and storage of big data.

The new Institute will complement Elsevier's recent acquisition of Mendeley, a company that operates a global research management and collaboration platform in the heart of east London's tech start-up community, and Elsevier's recent investment into building a London-based world-class web analytics group. Elsevier will establish a Centre of Excellence within the web analytics group in connection with the Institute, co-staffed with UCL researchers looking at areas outlined earlier. This will offer employment as well as commercialisation activities in collaboration with UCL Business and UCL Consultants.

UCL has a wide range of other research activities and joint initiatives within the broad and expanding area of big data and research analytics. To fully realise the synergy between these initiatives through the sharing of insights and resources, UCL is developing a Research Domain for "e-Research". UCL plans to have a connected community, from particle physics to digital humanities, sharing insights into better use of large computational resources in research. The Big Data Institute will be a key addition to that family of activities.

UCL will have access to Elsevier's world-class research data and enterprise-level technology, opening up new research possibilities with a broad range of applications. One such proven, open source big data technology, HPCC, is being used by Elsevier in the ScienceDirect platform, and across Elsevier's parent company Reed Elsevier.

Ron Mobed, Elsevier Chief Executive Officer, said: "This is a significant investment by Elsevier in UK science, in an area where we have outstanding expertise, and in a collaboration with a world-leading institution. Our aim is to help scientists do better research and do it faster."

UCL President and Provost, Professor Michael Arthur, said: "The UCL Big Data Institute will keep us at the forefront of addressing pressing issues around the storage of big data, the curation of scientific information, and the production, disclosure and consumption of research information. UCL and Elsevier inevitably have complementary interests in many aspects of research dissemination and will both together and independently continue to develop these for the good of the global research effort."

Rt Hon David Willetts, Minister of State for Universities and Science, who attended the launch event at UCL, said: "Big data is one of the eight great technologies. It has the potential to play a crucial role supporting the growth of the UK economy. It's estimated that the big data market will create up to 58,000 new UK jobs by 2017. Collaborations such as the one between University College London and Elsevier are vital if we are to take full advantage of the big data revolution and stay ahead in the global race."

About UCL (University College London)

Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine.

We are among the world's top universities, as reflected by our performance in a range of international rankings and tables. According to the Thomson Scientific Citation Index, UCL is the second most highly cited European university and the 15^th most highly cited in the world.

UCL has nearly 27,000 students from 150 countries and more than 9,000 employees, of whom one third are from outside the UK. The university is based in Bloomsbury in the heart of London, but also has two international campuses - UCL Australia and UCL Qatar. Our annual income is more than £800 million.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk | Follow us on Twitter @uclnews | Watch our YouTube channel YouTube.com/UCLTV

About Elsevier:

Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, Reaxys, ClinicalKey and Mosby's Suite, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, helping research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.

A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group plc, a world leading provider of professional information solutions. The group employs about 28,500 people, including more than 15,000 in North America. Reed Elsevier Group plc is owned equally by two parent companies, Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. Their shares are traded on the London, Amsterdam and New York Stock Exchanges using the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RUK and ENL.

Media contacts:

UCL press office
Henry Rummins
+44(0)207-679-9063
h.rummins@ucl.ac.uk

Elsevier
Rosanna Armstrong
+44(0)207-166-5708
Rosanna.armstrong@reedelsevier.com