About Nesta

Nesta is an innovation foundation. For us, innovation means turning bold ideas into reality and changing lives for the better. We use our expertise, skills and funding in areas where there are big challenges facing society.

More about us

Data science

We use analytical, data and technology skills to solve problems, test solutions, and drive Nesta’s missions forward.

We have a range of expert data scientists, engineers and programme managers motivated by a shared purpose to use data science for societal good.

What we do

We bring a deep expertise in data science methods and cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to advance our work across health, the environment and the early years.

We’re utilising complex nutritional and social trend data to identify the changes in our food environment that would make the biggest impact for reducing the number of people living with obesity in the UK.

We’re leveraging traditional and novel data sources to better understand the scale of need in the early years, more accurately deliver support, and monitor and evaluate the outcomes - all so children can have the opportunity for the best start in life.

Our experts use a range of datasets and methods to successfully accelerate heat pump adoption, from mapping the suitability of low-carbon technologies across the UK to building a chatbot to support heat pump installers.

Working with Nesta’s futures and foresight experts, we analyse diverse datasets - such as, venture funding, research publications, patents, news and policy debates - to unearth trends around innovations and technologies related to Nesta’s missions.

We draw on our expertise in natural language processing (NLP) and generative AI to develop innovative methods and support qualitative research efforts at Nesta.

Our approach

We work closely with colleagues from across Nesta, as well as partners in government, the private sector and beyond. Leveraging cutting-edge data science methods for social problems, we work with multidisciplinary teams to create impact and bring in-depth knowledge of the domains we are working in. Wherever possible, we work to open source principles, sharing our practice for others to learn from.

To learn more about our technical work visit our Medium blog and Github repository.

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Data science

About Nesta

Data science

Data science

What we do

A healthy life (reducing the prevalence of obesity)

A fairer start (reducing the early-years outcome gap)

A sustainable future (reducing home carbon emissions)

Discovery

Research methods innovation

Our approach

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