Oxford Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematics

Oxford Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematics
Alain Goriely · CC BY-SA 3.0 · source
Name	Oxford Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematics
Established	2019
Type	Research centre
City	Oxford
Country	United Kingdom
Parent	University of Oxford

Oxford Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematics is an interdisciplinary research centre based at the University of Oxford that focuses on developing mathematical methods for real-world problems through collaborative projects. The centre brings together researchers from the Mathematical Institute, Department of Engineering Science, Department of Physics, and Keble College to work with external partners from industry, government laboratories, and international universities. It hosts seminars, postgraduate training, and applied research programs that connect to centers and institutes across Europe and North America.

History

The centre was founded in 2019 following strategic discussions involving the University of Oxford, the Mathematical Institute, and donors tied to the Said Business School and St John’s College, reflecting initiatives similar to earlier centers such as the Institute for Mathematical Sciences, the Cambridge Centre for Analysis, and the Imperial College Data Science Institute. Early leadership included academics who had held posts at the Alan Turing Institute, the Isaac Newton Institute, and the Mathematical Institute at Durham, and who had collaborations with researchers from Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and ETH Zurich. Initial funding and programmatic design drew on models from the European Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, and partnerships seen at the National Physical Laboratory and CERN. Over its first years the centre hosted visiting fellows linked to the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the Simons Foundation, and organized workshops that mirrored events at the Banff International Research Station and the Fields Institute.

Research Areas and Programs

Research programs span applied analysis, computational modelling, uncertainty quantification, data assimilation, and optimization with applications in climate science, materials, bioengineering, and finance. Projects connect methods from nonlinear partial differential equations inspired by work at the Courant Institute and the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, stochastic processes related to the London School of Economics, and numerical linear algebra developed alongside groups at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Programs include thematic strands on multiscale modelling similar to efforts at the Max Planck Institute, inverse problems with links to Sandia National Laboratories, and machine learning for scientific discovery in collaboration with DeepMind and OpenAI research groups. The centre runs targeted initiatives on fluid dynamics that engage with the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition and turbulence research associated with the Mathematics Institute at the University of Cambridge, as well as materials modelling that parallels projects at the Fraunhofer Society and the Paul Scherrer Institute.

Education and Training

The centre provides doctoral training partnerships modeled on the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training framework and offers postgraduate courses alongside the Mathematical Institute, Department of Statistics, and Department of Computer Science. Training includes workshops on numerical methods, reproducible research, and high-performance computing with guest lecturers drawn from Oxford Brookes University, King's College London, and University College London. Summer schools bring students from the European Space Agency, the British Antarctic Survey, and the Wellcome Trust-funded networks, while fellowship schemes invite postdoctoral researchers affiliated with the Human Frontier Science Program, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, and the Humboldt Foundation. The centre also runs public engagement programs that coordinate with the Ashmolean Museum, the Bodleian Libraries, and the Royal Institution.

Collaborations and Partnerships

Collaborations extend to industrial partners including Rolls-Royce, BP, HSBC, and Siemens, and to public-sector organisations such as the Met Office, the National Health Service, and the Environment Agency. Academic partnerships include joint projects with Harvard University, Stanford University, University of Cambridge, EPFL, and the University of Toronto, and network ties with the European Space Agency, NATO Science for Peace, and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. The centre participates in consortia supported by Innovate UK, Horizon Europe, and the National Science Foundation, and maintains exchange agreements with the Princeton Institute for Computational Science and Engineering, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. Memoranda of understanding have been signed with charitable funders including the Wellcome Trust, the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, and the Nuffield Foundation.

Facilities and Resources

Facilities comprise collaborative office space within the Mathematical Institute precinct, dedicated high-performance computing clusters linked to the Advanced Research Computing facility, and access to laboratory space through partnerships with the Department of Engineering Science and the Begbroke Science Park. The centre provides software stacks used at national facilities such as ARCHER and JASMIN, and maintains data repositories interoperable with Zenodo and the UK Data Service standards. Seminar rooms host visiting colloquia coordinated with the Oxford Internet Institute, the Kennedy Institute, and the Saïd Business School. Instrumentation and experimental platforms are available through links with the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Diamond Light Source, and the John Radcliffe Hospital clinical research units.

Category:University of Oxford Category:Research institutes in England Category:Mathematical research institutes