The financial services industry is at the forefront of the digital economy, and is crucial to the UK's, and especially London's, continuing social and economic prosperity. State-of-the-art Financial IT, Computational Finance and Financial Engineering (collectively Financial Computing) research is crucial to our international competitiveness in investment banking, investment funds or retail banking. Academically this DTC focuses on financial computing, as distinct from quantitative finance, already well resourced. Banks and funds view PhD students in science and engineering as an increasingly important and largely untapped talent pool; although one regrettably with little knowledge of finance. The Financial Services Skills Council notes that employers are placing increasing importance on high-level analytical skills, as well as their acute shortage, especially in the newly emerging areas that drive sector growth. This centre completely embraces the spirit of the Digital Economy programme. The proposed DTC is inherently multidisciplinary involving UCL Computer Science, one of the largest leading departments in its field in the UK, with LSE Finance and the London Business School; the two leading academic finance centres in the UK. Key to developing the financial services industry in the Digital Economy is the creation of a new cohort of researchers who have a strong research capability in IT and computation, but also understand finance and the needs of the wholesale financial services industry leading to early adoption of new financial information technology research.The research groups and centres that will participate in this DTC include worldclass groups at: UCL, such as the Software Systems Engineering Group and the Centre for Computational Statistics and Machine Learning, at LSE such as Financial Markets Group, and at the London Business School, including the Management Science and Operations and Finance Subject Areas. The total value of active grants currently held by the participating groups and centres exceeds 20 Million Pounds, and the number of currently registered PhD students exceeds 130. Collaborators in Statistics, Economics, Mathematics and Physics supplement the potential Supervisor pool.A great strength of this DTC proposal is our industry partners, which include: Abbey, Barclays, Barclays Capital, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Man Investments, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Nomura, RBS and Thomson Reuters. Regarding training and supervision, each DTC PhD student will follow a personally tailored programme of postgraduate courses drawn from the partners covering financial IT, networks & communications, HCI, computational finance, financial engineering and business, supplemented by lectures from our industry partners: * A tailored educational programme comprising graduate-level courses from UCL, LSE and LBS. * An academic supervisor (from UCL, LSE or LBS) and an industrial advisor (a partner bank, fund or Reuters), and a programme of research covered by an MOU. * A research project in financial IT, computational finance or financial engineering. * Training in industry software, such as Reuters 3000 Xtra, through UCL's virtual training floor.* A substantial period of industrial placement as agreed between the academic and industrial supervisors.* A short period at a leading foreign academic centre

Geometry and number theory are core disciplines within pure mathematics, with many repercussions across science and society. They are subjects that have attracted some of the best minds in mathematics since the time of the Ancient Greeks and continue to exert a natural fascination on professional and amateur mathematicians alike. Throughout the history of mathematics, both topics have very often inspired major mathematical developments which have had enormous impact beyond their original applications. The fascination of number theory is exemplified by the story of Fermat's last theorem, the statement of which was written down in 1637 and which is simple enough to be understood by anyone familiar with high school mathematics. It took more than 350 years of hard work and highly significant developments across mathematics before Wiles's celebrated proof was finally published in 1995. Wiles's proof involves a mixture of ideas from number theory and geometry, and the interplay between these topics is one of the most active areas of research in pure mathematics today. The Centre is needed to educate the next generation of academic researchers to maintain the excellence and competitiveness of the UK's universities and also to deliver highly trained mathematicians ready to take their place in financial and other high-tech industries. As shown by our letters of support from the Bank of England, the Satellite Applications Catapult, Heilbronn, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Schlumberger, a wide range of employers have the vision to invest in highly trained pure mathematicians. Our partners all speak highly of the analytical and problem-solving abilities of pure mathematicians trained to PhD level. The students trained in this Centre will be even more highly skilled: the structure of the training programme will encourage independence and leadership and will embed professional development and key skills such as programming, communication skills and public engagement alongside cutting-edge research in topics chosen from geometry and number theory.

It is now widely accepted that we are living through a 4th industrial revolution and that innovation driven by digital technologies such as the Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Quantum Computing, 5G mobile networks, the Internet-of-Things (IoT), blockchain cryptography, sensory devices, wearables, and decentralised data flows. etc is fundamentally changing the economy, society and individual lives. The mission of DIGIT is to accelerate the responsible application of digital technology on productivity and employee wellbeing. We will do this specifically in Large Organisations the 'big name firms' in the public and private sectors who employ more than 250 employees. Attention diverted to start-ups and a highlighting of successes by "unicorns" has obscured the fact that LEOs continue to drive the UK economy, employing 57% UK workforce and sustaining communities throughout the UK. The 2018 Gartner report found 11 out of 15 organisations identified digital transformation as one of their top three organisation priorities for 2018 and the top priority for banking and investment, telecoms and government sectors. Similarly, 71% of UK business leaders admitted that digital transformation is not as widespread as it should be. A survey of 4600 business leaders by Dell found that the UK lags companies from India, Brazil and Thailand in digital transformation. Although traditional consulting remedies have application in the analog world, digital technologies are revolutionising what is possible, and far more creativity is urgently required, DIGIT is designed to meet this need. As a Centre of Excellence in digital innovation, DIGIT will provide its partners with an opportunity to trial 4th industrial revolution technologies and business models that aim to bring together the four areas of wealth creation that are at the heart of our proposal: business growth, productivity, wellbeing and the environment. We will provide our business partners with these opportunities in two phases. In Phase 1, participating firms who are already exploring '4th tech' can expect to access partner facilities, designed specifically to help expand and explore new dimensions to this testing, including wellbeing, productivity and sustainability in a low-risk environment. In Phase 2, DIGIT partners will be provided with access to a demonstrator, opportunities for testing in-the-wild and a programme of evaluative action research, which aims to ensure that subsequent processes of adoption are effective and responsible.

Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are challenging the way we perceive money. Offering new models for financial transactions, based on trust, and maintained through its open transactional database, currencies such as Bitcoin challenge the government-regulated fiat currencies that we currently use today. However, users of cryptocurrencies are beginning to realise that it is the underlying technology of the blockchain that is likely to have the most profound effect on how we understand money. The blockchain is an global open ledger that records and verifies transactions, whilst encrypting the identity of users changes entirely how value is accounted for. No longer are banks or governments the mediators of currencies, with the power to divest or invest to dictate the flow of value within society, the blockchain decentralises money and offers a platform for its creative use. Presenting money as code, users of the blockchain are starting to explore new opportunities for how values can be represented, as technologies such as the blockchain change the representation of value. This project will introduce the underlying principles of the blockchain to audiences that would otherwise not be consulted on the development of new currencies. Using a design-led and participatory approach, the research project will explore potential use cases for money as software through involvement with families, small businesses and local civic services. The research represents a significant contribution to contemporary debates around the emergence of new forms of value exchange and offers tangible outcomes for local, economic and academic communities. This 18 month project addresses directly the ESRC priority area: 'Economic performance and sustainable growth'. The innovative design of this research project, its relationship with actual high street environments and involvement of the New Economic Foundation and the Royal Bank of Scotland constitutes transformative research at the high risk, high reward end of the research spectrum.

Creative Informatics is an R&D partnership which will grow Edinburgh's creative industries cluster, by helping it to tap the huge potential of using data to shape, develop and deliver new products and services for public and business customers. Over the past ten years, new data-driven products and services have transformed the way people engage with cultural experiences, conduct transactions, and relate to each other. Our ambition is to enable the sector to succeed in an increasingly competitive market, by addressing key innovation challenges and by developing the R&D capacity and data literacy of companies to ensure they can capitalise on new technology to develop new products and services. The R&D Partnership is hosted by the University of Edinburgh, with Edinburgh Napier University and has two key delivery partners: Creative Edinburgh, a well-connected network of over 3800 members, and CodeBase, the largest technology incubator in the UK and one of the fastest growing in Europe. Creative Informatics will benefit from outstanding infrastructure to support delivery including that provided by the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal which will focus on Data Driven Innovation. We will bring together cultural partners, creative businesses and entrepreneurs with academic expertise in the fields of design, informatics, business, law and cultural heritage, to address four Innovation Challenges: 1. Developing access to and engagement with new audiences and markets 2. Developing new modalities of experience 3. Unlocking value in archives and data sets 4. Revealing new business models for the creative industries These challenges could see Edinburgh's Festivals extending the festival experiences offered both in Edinburgh and overseas. Outputs from projects could lead to new commercial products for home entertainment, new apps, games, new ways to buy products and services by experiencing them first, new ways for advertising agencies to develop campaigns and experiences for clients, and online experiences for remote participation. Museums and Galleries will be able to mine text and images in their archives to create opportunities for new product lines for SMEs and the tools developed along the way can also be licensed and sold. Partnerships across our cluster will include creative teams who understand new transaction technologies (crowd-financing, micro-payments, cryptocurrencies). This will ensure creative entrepreneurs can develop radical new products and services, whilst understanding the opportunities and threats and ensuring that social interests are safeguarded. The development of data-driven solutions for adapting and distributing content will open up new international market opportunities for a range of creative industries sub-sectors including design, advertising, gaming, publishing, film and TV production companies, music/record companies, and fashion. We will support growth of the cluster through six R&D initiatives which have been co-designed with partners to meet their needs. Challenge Projects, Horizon Projects and Creative Informatics Labs (CI Labs) will respond directly to the four innovation challenges. Creative Bridge, a dedicated data-driven business innovation programme; Resident Entrepreneurs; and Connected Innovators will respond to the challenge of developing and retaining talent, entrepreneurs and leaders to fuel the growth of the creative industries cluster in Edinburgh. Edinburgh's creative industries cluster has a vibrant creative and technology culture in a city internationally renowned for both culture and entrepreneurship. Creative Informatics provides the missing 'cog' to allow creative entrepreneurs to connect with world-leading expertise in data science and Edinburgh's tech and start-up culture and fulfil its potential to make the UK an international centre for creative data-driven innovation.