News

DAFNI Christmas Logo

Welcome to the December edition of the DAFNI Newsletter and indeed our last newsletter of 2020!

DAFNI has seen a flurry of events over the last couple of weeks and in this edition we would like to highlight one event in particular, the Digital Twins and Data Ontologies event, which was led by one of our Governance Board leads from UCL: Professor Liz Varga.

Liz is leading a group of Universities who are championing DAFNI and this event helped to inform the direction DAFNI should take in its data ontology to support Digital Twins. In February 2021 we hope to be able to share with you results from the Data Ontology Survey which is capturing information about how much progress there is on ontology use in infrastructure systems: energy, transport, water, waste, and telecommunications.

Looking to January 2021, we are busy working on the final stages of the DAFNI Development Programme, continuing our regular schedule of events (listed below) as well as continuing to build our user community.

If you would like to join our growing number of users of the platform, please do get in contact with us through info@dafni.ac.uk and let us know what work you would like to bring onto DAFNI.

Finally I would like to wish you all a very happy Christmas and look forward to working with you all in 2021.

 

 

Dr Brian Matthews, DAFNI Project Leader

  Contents

  • Digital Twins and Data Ontologies survey and online meeting 
  • Events 
  • Our pick of funding & training calls

Digital Twins & Data Ontologies event and survey

DAFNI’s Data Ontology Champions held an event on the 2nd of December which attracted an audience from across government, industry and academia with some 150+ joining us on Zoom to hear from experts sharing their work and sharing insights on future approaches.

Some presentations to highlight:

 

Please refer to the Data Ontology Webpage for full details of the event and to see the contributions made by attendees.

 

Survey still open!

 

The data ontology survey is still open and we welcome your views. The focus of the survey is to capture how much progress there is on ontology use in infrastructure systems such as energy, transport, water, waste, and telecommunications and to share this with the wider community.

One lucky winner will receive a box of chocolates and the winner will be announced in the February newsletter.

Take the survey.

DAFNI Webinar - NISMOD

Events – booking now open!

DAFNI Webinar – NISMOD meets DAFNI

Thurs 21 January || 10:00-13:00 

All welcome. Demonstration of NISMOD workflows and visulisations on DAFNI. 

Follow this link to book now

Cranfield University

DAFNI Roadshow @ Cranfield University

Thurs 4 February || 09:30 – 12:30

All are welcome to hear from our Champion, Dr Simon Jude, our Cranfield Researchers as well as a demonstration of DAFNI and learn about potential use cases for DAFNI 

 Follow this link to book now.

Southampton University

DAFNI Roadshow @ University of Southampton 

Monday 8 February || 14:00 – 17:00

All welcome to hear from UKCRIC and Southampton Researchers as well as a demonstration of DAFNI and discussion on potential use cases for DAFNI 

Follow this link to book now.

Bridge

DAFNI hackathon @ Bristol Urban Observatory 

Monday 18th January 

Closed session: over two weeks of development work to investigate bringing Bristol data onto DFANI

 Funding & training calls

  • Expression of interest: ATI Programme strategic batch: Dec 2020Expression of interest: ATI Programme strategic batch: Dec 2020 Deadline: 23rd December at 11:00 UK
    The ATI Programme funds industrial research and investment aid for research infrastructures to make the UK civil aerospace sector more competitive.
  • ATI programme: R&D funding for smaller business, expression of interest, Autumn 2020 Deadline: 6 January 2021 at 11:00 UKUK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £8 million to carry out industry-led civil aerospace collaborative R&D projects. This funding is from the ATI Programme.
  • NERC standard and new investigator grant Deadline: 12 January at 16:00 UK This funding opportunity supports researchers to carry out world-class research projects in any area of environmental science within our remit.You can apply for funding of up to £800,000 (at 100% full economic cost). We will fund 80% of your project’s full economic cost
  • Development of the Digital Security by Design software ecosystem Deadline: 13 January 2021 16:00 UK-registered small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can apply for a share of up to £1.5 million for fast-start, short-term projects. Funding is to investigate requirements for adoption of Digital Security by Design (DSbD) technologies across the software development ecosystem.
  • Strategic equipment grant – open call Deadline: Proposals are welcome at any time. Grants for strategic equipment for researchers at UK higher education institutions, research council institutes, UKRI-approved independent research organisations and NHS bodies. Equipment could include cutting-edge technology that allows new research or increases the capacity and ability to carry out existing research.
  • ESRC research grant                                                  Deadline: Open – no closing date Individuals and research teams can apply for funding at any time to support standard research projects, large-scale surveys, infrastructure projects and methodological developments. Focus can be on any subject area or topic within ESRC’s remit. Social sciences must represent more than 50% of the focus and effort.
  • Secondary Data Analysis Initiative Deadline: Open – no closing date. This grant aims to support further use of existing data resources created by the ESRC and other agencies. It is open to researchers at any career stage who wish to develop their skills in using secondary data. The social sciences must represent more than 50% of the research focus and effort.

Funding & training calls cont…

  • EPSRC discipline-hopping in ICT
    Deadline: Proposals are welcome at any time. Discipline-hopping grants are for researchers at UK higher education institutions, research council institutes, UKRI-approved independent research organisations and NHS bodies. You may have a background in information and communications technologies (ICT) and propose to use your research skills in a new discipline. Alternatively, you may have other expertise and wish to learn ICT research skills and apply them in your home discipline.
  • Secondary Data Analysis Initiative (SDAI) – open call Deadline: Proposals are welcome at any time. Funding: Funding is provided for up to 24 months with an overall limit of £300,000 (100% fEC) per grant. Funding will be available for around 12-15 proposals a year, subject to quality. This may increase with the involvement of other organisations.
    The Secondary Data Analysis Initiative aims to deliver high-quality high-impact research through utilising existing data resources created by the ESRC and other agencies in order to address some of the most pressing challenges facing society. The Initiative operates alongside ESRC’s Research Grants open call. Proposals will be considered by a Grants Assessment Panel (GAP) that has been specifically convened to consider SDAI proposals.
  • Cancellation of Jan/Feb 2021 Intensive Observing Period (IOP)
    A decision has been made to cancel the Clean Air Programme winter Intensive Observing Period, previously scheduled for Monday 20 January to Friday 28 February 2021. The intention is however to continue as planned with a summer community experiment from Monday 8 June to Friday 17 July 2021.
  • EPSRC new investigator award
    Deadline: Open – no closing date
    You can apply for this award at any time in any area funded by EPSRC if you are an academic and have not previously led a research group or received a significant grant.
  • EPSRC network grant
    Deadline: Open – no closing date
    You can apply for network grants to build new interdisciplinary research communities and topics at any time in any area funded by EPSRC: chemistry, engineering, information and communication technologies, materials, mathematical sciences and physics.
  • EPSRC programme grant
    Deadline: Open – no closing date
    You can apply for large and strategic programme grants at any time in any area funded by EPSRC: chemistry, engineering, information and communication technologies, materials, mathematical sciences and physics.
  • EPSRC standard research grant  Deadline: Open – no closing date You can apply for standard research grants at any time in any area funded by EPSRC: chemistry, engineering, information and communications technologies, materials, mathematical sciences and physics.
  • NERC large grant  Deadline: 9 November 2021 16:00 UK This funding opportunity supports innovative, large-scale and complex research tackling big science questions. You can apply for funding between £1.2 million and £3.7 million for projects lasting up to five years.
21st December 2020