University of Sussex given funding for new course in artificial intelligence

Sussex University is one of 18 Universities across the UK that is being given £13 Million by the Office for Students to produce more graduates in artificial intelligence and data science.

With the Government’s Digital Strategy predicting that within 20 years, 90 per cent of all jobs will require some digital skills, addressing skills shortages in the artificial intelligence and data science industries aims to remove retraining barriers, and drive diversity.

This funding will help address these issues by working with universities to allow people from a non-STEM background to train in the field.

The conversion course will be taught through specialist teaching and paid work placements, and open to both STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduates and non-STEM graduates.

The  courses developed by these universities will teach skills useful to a wide range of industries, including medicine, transport, social sciences, biosciences and sports business.

Other universities being awarded the funding include, Loughborough University, University of Birmingham, and Brunel University London.

At Sussex University, this funding will add a new course to the already established Data Science MSc. The new course ‘Date Science: Social Science, Business and Humanities’ aims to recruit high quality students from a diverse range of academic backgrounds, provide students with high quality teaching, increase exposure to real-world problems through an industrial placement scheme and increase recruitment and retention of students from underrepresented groups.

This will be achieved through targeted marketing, a holistic pastoral support scheme and scholarships that will support a proportion of the total student intake, directed at female, black and disabled students.

Project partners include Brandwatch and InCrowd who will deliver placement opportunities and who have been involved in co-creating the project.