The UK RDRF brings together a number of research strands funded under the DET, EPSRC and ESRC portfolios over the last decade to create a national facility to tackle the vexed question of regional competitiveness and rebalancing the UK economy. Following the Scottish referendum there have been renewed calls for greater devolution to regions and core cities. This facility will bring together the big economic data and construct the high resolution models needed to support policy makers at national, regional and local level. It will innovate by building together a model of the fixed stock of buildings, including housing, commercial, warehousing and manufacturing, with a network model of key infrastructure. This will allow analysis of which policy nudges might be expected to overcome the inertia present in the historic geography of the UK. It will allow a common framework of data and evidence ti be used by regional and local policy professionals wishing to evaluate policy options. The whole facility is built on the opportunity created by CDT funding to develop a cohort of evidence based policy professionals and analysts to support the needs of a more devolved form of planning. We aim to support the creation of a 'community of practice' based on access to big economic data and open source analysis and modelling tools. We will host workshops and networks to spread best practice and create some institutional glue amongst the people concerned. Finally, we will engage local communities in the debate and bring the same evidence and tools to the public at large through crowd science and in-the-wild research engagement.

CENTRE VISION Our vision for the new CDT in Financial Computing and Analytics is to as a national 'beacon' linking PhD & Masters' students, industry and academia in financial computing and analytics. We and our Industry partners are also central to the forthcoming investments in Big Data from EPSRC and ESRC (e.g. Business Datasafe). Its principal objective is to educate the next generation of elite PhDs with unparalleled, cross-disciplinary expertise in applied computing, analytics and financial mathematics, as well as in-depth sector understanding, to meet an increasing demand for their skills within the Financial Service Industry, Government, Retail and other Service sectors. Our existing DTC in Financial Computing is unique (there is no other research & training activity like it in the world) and by placing our PhD students in financial institutions and regulators it has had a major impact on the UK financial sector, as indicated by the Financial Times article (School for QUANTS) and our Letters of Support. The CDT is a new partnership between UCL, LSE and ICL, all providing MRes courses and PhD supervision. NATIONAL IMPORTANCE & GROWING NEED FOR CROSS-DISCIPLINARY SKILLS London is the world's leading international financial centre and the UK financial services industry is the key sector for the UK economy, contributed £124bn to the UK economy, generating a trade surplus of £36bn in 2010 and employing 1 million people. London is also the location for our financial regulators and world-class Retailers. Our Financial and other Service industries are therefore crucial to the UK's, and especially London's, continuing social and economic prosperity. Although we receive over 600 enquiries/applications per annum, and growing, recent reports by McKinsey and Accenture highlight the major and growing skills shortage of (postgrad) IT/data scientists in the USA 22,000 and the UK 4,000. EPSRC PRIORITIES AND RESEARCH The proposed CDT is aligned to EPSRC priorities across a number of Themes, in particular: Data to Knowledge (an ICT Theme priority), Industrially Focussed Mathematical Modelling (Mathematical Sciences) and New Digital Ventures (Digital Economy). The crucially important IT research challenges in just one area, namely the application of software engineering, AI and verification/correctness to algorithms for automated trading, illustrates the enormous research opportunities. IMPACT The current DTC in Financial Computing is acknowledged by the Department of Business Innovation & Skills as having had a major impact on our financial industry partners and on our academic partners. This will continue with the new CDT, impacting Regulators, government, Retailers and analytics companies. * STUDENTS - In 2011 the Centre funded more female PhD students than males, and in 2012 the Centre started 40 new PhD students if we count DTC funded students, students funded by other sources, such as retail and analytics companies, and industry-based part-time students. * ACADEMIA - UCL, LSE and Imperial College have all appointed new faculty in applied financial computing and business analytics; and UCL and ICL have started new Masters programmes. * INDUSTRY - many of the Banks now have established formal PhD programmes, in part due to the current DTC, and proved lecturers to the partners for industry-oriented programmes. * REGULATORS AND GOVERNMENT- we have placed PhD students in the BoE/FSA/PRA/FCA and the Cabinet Office, and as discussed in the Case for Support, we have held individual meetings and workshops with the Regulators (BoE, PRA, FCA) and with new (Retailer) partners (Tesco, BUPA, Unilever) to discuss how we can support them. * SOCIETAL - we encourage and support our PhD students in launching their own start-up, and we provide Masters and Undergraduate students to London-based start-ups, especially in the area called New Finance (e.g. P2P lending, crowdfunding).