̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT)

Cambridge leads governmental project to understand impact of smartphones and social media on young people

cjb250 — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 00:01:37 +0000

̽��ֱ��work has been commissioned by the UK government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology after a review by the UK Chief Medical Officer in 2019 found the evidence base around the links to children’s mental health were insufficient to provide strong conclusions suitable to inform policy.

̽��ֱ��project – led by a team at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, in collaboration with researchers at several leading UK universities – is aimed at improving policymakers’ understanding of the relationship between children’s wellbeing and smartphone use, including social media and messaging. It will help direct future government action in this area.

Project lead Dr Amy Orben from the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (MRC CBU) at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge said: “There is huge concern about the impact of smartphone use on children's health, but the evidence base remains fairly limited. While the government is under substantial time pressure to make decisions, these will undoubtedly be better if based on improved evidence.

“This is a complex and rapidly evolving issue, with both potential harms and benefits associated with smartphone use. Technology is changing by the day, and scientific evidence creation needs to evolve and innovate to keep up.

“Our focus will be on deepening our causal understanding of the effects of new technologies, particularly over short timescales, to ensure that decisions are informed, timely and evidence-based.”

Dr Orben will lead a Project Delivery Team, with Consortium Members from the universities of Bath, Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford and York and the London School of Economics. It will aim to identify which research methods and data sources will be most effective at identifying potential causal relationships between social media, smartphones, and the health and development of children and young people

Deputy project lead Dr Amrit Kaur Purba, also from the MRC CBU at Cambridge, said: “ ̽��ֱ��impact of social media on young people is a pressing issue, and our project will ensure the research community is in a strong position to provide policymakers with the causal and high-quality insights they need. While we don’t expect this to be straightforward, our research will leverage diverse expertise from across the UK to deliver a comprehensive and informed response to make recommendations for how research in this area should be supported in future.”

̽��ֱ��researchers will review and summarise existing research on the impact of smartphones and social media on children and young people’s mental health, wellbeing, physical health, lifestyle and health behaviours, and educational attainment. ̽��ֱ��review will recognise the diversity of perspectives that exist in this area and consider where further research could add valuable new insights to the evidence base.

They will assess the various methods and data available to understand the causal impacts, including recognising that online habits and emerging technologies are changing at a rapid pace, and considering how the experiences of vulnerable children and young people – for example, LGBTQ+ young people and those with special needs or mental health issues – can be captured in future research projects.

This will allow the team to recommend and outline how future research studies could deliver robust and causal evidence on the impact of smartphones and social media on child development factors in the next two to three years.

Technology Secretary Peter Kyle, said: " ̽��ֱ��online world offers immense opportunities for young people to connect and learn. Ensuring they can do so in an environment which puts their safety first is my priority and will guide this government’s action on online safety.

“That’s why we have launched new research, led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge with support from other top UK universities, to better understand the complex relationship between technology and young people's wellbeing.

“This vital research will build a trusted evidence base for future action, helping us to protect and empower the next generation towards a safer and more positive digital future."

Cambridge researchers are leading the first phase of a new research project that will lay the groundwork for future studies into the impact on children of smartphone and social media use.

This is a complex and rapidly evolving issue, with both potential harms and benefits associated with smartphone use. Technology is changing by the day, and scientific evidence creation needs to evolve and innovate to keep up

Amy Orben

Owen Franken

Teenager holding a smartphone

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

G7 representatives meet in Cambridge to discuss semiconductors

hcf38 — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 09:35:45 +0000

Representatives of the Semiconductors Point of Contact Group from the G7 group of nations met in Cambridge on 26 September. ̽��ֱ��meeting was held at ARM, which designs over 95% of the processors in the world. Representatives from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, as well as representatives from local semiconductor companies, participated in the events.

Semiconductors underpin nearly every electrical, optical and quantum device, from mobile phones and medical equipment to electric vehicles. They are of global strategic significance due to the integral role they play in net zero, artificial intelligence and quantum technology.

̽��ֱ��G7 Semiconductor Points of Contact group is dedicated to facilitating information exchange and sharing best practices among G7 members. ̽��ֱ��PoC Group plans to exchange information on issues impacting the semiconductor industry, including pre-competitive industrial research and development priorities, sustainable manufacturing, the effect of non-market policies and practices, and crisis coordination channels.

Cambridge was chosen for the meeting in part because of its strong innovation ecosystem, which has produced more ‘unicorns’ – privately held startup companies valued at over US$1 billion – than anywhere else in the UK.

A 2023 report found that the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge contributes nearly £30 billion to the UK economy annually and supports more than 86,000 jobs across the UK, including 52,000 in the East of England.

For every £1 the ̽��ֱ�� spends, it creates £11.70 of economic impact, and for every £1 million of publicly-funded research income it receives, it generates £12.65 million in economic impact across the UK.

̽��ֱ��National Quantum Strategy (2023) and the National Semiconductor Strategy (2023) highlight the UK’s national strengths in quantum and photonic technologies and compound semiconductors. These sectors foster growth and create high-skilled jobs, and position the UK as a hub of global innovation.

Dr Diarmuid O’Brien, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Innovation at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “Semiconductors are a vital technology for the UK’s economic growth, and Cambridge is a leader in semiconductor research and development. Working with our partners in academia, industry and government, we can develop next-generation semiconductor technologies and companies, and train the next generation of semiconductor scientists and engineers.”

Professor Andrea Ferrari, Director of the Cambridge Graphene Centre, hosted, on behalf of the ̽��ֱ��, a formal dinner in Pembroke College for the attendees of the G7 Semiconductors group. He stated that: “Cambridge played a key foundational role in the development of electronics. ̽��ֱ��electron was discovered here in 1897, by JJ Thomson. In 1961, electron beam lithography, a key method for integrated circuit fabrication, was invented in Cambridge. These early achievements were followed by many advances in circuit design, innovative advanced materials, photonic and quantum communications. It is thus fitting that the G7 Semiconductors representatives met at the heart of where all started.”

Science Minister Lord Vallance said: "Semiconductors are an unseen but vital component in so many of the technologies we rely on in our lives and backing UK innovators offers a real opportunity to growth these firms into industry leaders, strengthening our £10 billion sector and ensuring it drives economic growth. Hosting the G7 semiconductors Points of Contact group is also a chance to showcase the UK’s competitive and growing sector and make clear our commitment to keeping the UK at the forefront of advancing technology."

Representatives from the G7 have met in Cambridge to discuss the main priorities for the future development of semiconductors and their impact on the global economy.

Yes

UK-US Summit for Democracy announces Cambridge team as joint winners of challenge to detect financial crime

cjb250 — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 12:53:46 +0000

̽��ֱ��announcement came at the second UK-US Summit for Democracy on 30 March 2023. ̽��ֱ��prize challenges innovators on both sides of the Atlantic to build solutions that enable collaborative development of artificial intelligence (AI) models, while keeping sensitive information private.

Driven by a shared priority to employ data to help solve critical global challenges in a manner that supports US and UK commitments to democratic values and the fundamental right to privacy, the challenges focused on developing PETs solutions for two scenarios: forecasting pandemic infection and detecting financial crime.

A team led by Professor Nic Lane from the Department of Computer Science and Technology at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge was named joint winner in the financial crime category. Their challenge was to develop a privacy-preserving solution to help tackle the challenge of international money laundering.

Xinchi Qiu, a PhD student in Professor Lane’s lab, said: “We developed an end-to-end privacy-preserving federated learning solution to detect potentially anomalous payments, leveraging a combination of inputs from a number of financial institution and different banks. Our project aims to develop a method that can utilise all the inputs from different institutions while protecting the original data.”

Professor Lane said: "Right now, machine learning with federated and other privacy preserving methods are niche. But in the near future they will be the norm. Most of the world's data is inaccessible for machine learning – however these new methods are making such data available in safe manner. This will be a game changer for many high impact domains that are currently starved of sufficient data, such as health, finance and legal. Our solution shows how this can be done effectively for money laundering, but our methods can migrate to these other domains."

Experts from academic institutions, global technology companies, and privacy start-ups competed for cash prizes from a combined UK-US prize pool of $1.6 million (£1.3 million). ̽��ֱ��winning solutions combined different PETs to allow the AI models to learn to make better predictions without exposing any sensitive data. This focus on combining privacy approaches encouraged the development of innovative solutions that address practical data privacy concerns in real world scenarios.

In the final phase of the challenges, the privacy guarantees of the solutions were put to the test by ‘red teams’, who attempted to reveal the original data used for training the models. ̽��ֱ��resilience of the solutions to these attacks determined the final winners.

Michelle Donelan, Secretary of State for the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, said: “Never before has our privacy been so important and we must protect our democratic values by safeguarding the right to privacy. That is why the UK and its allies are collaborating to create innovative technologies that enable public institutions to combat financial crime and promote public health without compromising the confidentiality of the sensitive data they manage.”

UK participants also received support from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office to help them consider how their solutions could demonstrate compliance with key UK data protection regulation principles.

John Edwards, UK Information Commissioner, said: “Privacy enhancing technologies can help analyse data responsibly, lawfully and securely and it will be important for regulators and industry to continue to work together to support responsible innovation in these technologies.”

Arati Prabhakar, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, added: “Data has the power to drive solutions to some of our biggest shared challenges, but much of that data is sensitive and needs to be protected.”

Adapted from a press release from the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation

A Cambridge team has been announced as one of the winners of a prize to drive ‘innovation in privacy-enhancing technologies that reinforce democratic values’ for its work on tackling international money laundering.

Most of the world's data is inaccessible for machine learning – however, these new methods are making such data available in a safe manner. This will be a game changer for many high impact domains

Nic Lane

Geralt

Networks

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Licence type:

Public Domain