Earlier this year we announced our involvement in the Emergent Alliance – a not-for-profit community established to share data, expertise and resources to work together to aid economic recovery in 2020 and shape a new normal.
We are working through our parent organisation Leeds Institute for Data Analytics to provide the COVID-19 data alliance with scientific expertise and access to global academic research networks.
What is the Emergent Alliance?
The Emergent Alliance is a collaboration of large organisations, small businesses, institutes and individuals – founding members include Leeds Institute for Data Analytics, IBM, Google Cloud, The Data City, Truata, Rolls-Royce, Microsoft, ODI Leeds, SATAVIA, Fieldfisher and Whitespace. Since launching in April we have added a further 29 members and our Alliance continues to grow globally.
Drawing on this diverse collaboration of corporates, individuals, NGOs and Governments, the Alliance will contribute expertise, data, and resources to inform decision making on regional and global economic challenges to aid societal recovery post Covid-19.
We want to have the ability to take a broad set of economic, behavioural and sentiment data, fuse it together and provide new insights and practical applications to the global Covid-19 response.
The models produced will identify lead indicators signalling economic recovery cycles that global businesses and government can use to build operating confidence in investment and activities that shorten or limit recessionary impacts.
Who and how can the Alliance help?
Governments, businesses and individuals around the world have been challenged by Covid-19 to act quickly, decisively and effectively using the best available scientific evidence and insight.
The Alliance provides a much-needed independent means of sourcing and shaping ideas regarding Covid-19 recovery and longer-term sustainability is required.
By mobilising skills, data and analytics from a wide range of organisations and institutions at a global scale, the Emergent Alliance can help to contribute to a step-change in the use of data to address the economic and social challenges which come in its wake.
The outputs from the alliance are intended to help understand economic implications and aid recovery, to provide insight beyond what is currently known.
Our role in the Alliance
LIDA has a number of roles within the Alliance, including:
- providing a secure, accredited and independent data sharing platform;
- offering data analytics support for the execution of projects;
- leading the preparation of ‘challenge statements’;
- and it is one of a small number of members with responsibility for shaping the alliance’s strategic direction.
CDRC is working through Leeds Institute for Data Analytics to provide the Alliance with scientific expertise and access to global academic research networks.
Current Challenges
Activities are structured around a series of Challenge Statements, which articulate the social and economic problems to be addressed. The Alliance currently has four challenges underway:
- The Normalisation of Rail Passenger Services – Helping policy makers and co-citizens make informed choices about the risks and benefits of a return to normal train timetables and increased patronage during the Coronavirus crisis.
- Guidance for aviation on optimising recovery versus virus transmission – Considering how governments can manage aviation travel restrictions to minimise the detrimental economic impact while minimising the risk of a second wave of COVID-19.
- Data monitoring dashboard: aviation activity, economic health and climate impact – Using various datasets (e.g. current passenger traffic volumes, government declarations on travel restrictions, ADS-B data on current aircraft movements, etc) we seek to track – in real time – the current status of the aviation sector, as well as its economic impact and environmental footprint.
- Supply Chain Stress: PPE – Understanding the PPE shortage, identifying lead indicators for demand and improving preparedness within the supply chain. Results from each of the challenges will be made available via the Emergent Alliance website.
As well as sharing results from challenges, members are asked to make their data available publicly wherever possible. There has been a lot of progress in curating data sets and sharing information through an online cataloguedeveloped by Open Data Institute (ODI) Leeds.
Whilst the Emergent Alliance does focus on the recovery from Covid-19, its cross-industry collaboration model and practices for data sharing could be applied to any number of pre-existing societal challenges.
