www.aiacceleratorinstitute.com Open in urlscan Pro
2a04:4e42:400::775  Public Scan

Form analysis
2 forms found in the DOM

<form>
  <input id="search-field" class="st-default-search-input" placeholder="Start typing...">
</form>

<form data-members-form="subscribe" ps-dynamic-form-id="2715403e-cb5d-4e61-b029-a99d90b463b7">
  <input data-members-email="" type="email" required="true" placeholder="youremail@example.com" ps-email-field-id="ba243084-e38e-4ce5-99b1-17b82a69d362">
  <br>
  <button type="submit" ps-submit-button-id="eb48099c-0433-4633-85ce-e6be66171241">Join</button>
</form>

Text Content

Log in Membership

Membership

MEMBERSHIP PLANS

Pick your path

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

From AI leaders

TEAM MEMBERSHIP

For teams of 3+

INDIVIDUAL MEMBERSHIP

Access the AI ecosystem

TAKE A PEEK INSIDE

See what the fuss is about

MEMBERSHIP RELEASE NOTES

EXCLUSIVE MEMBERSHIP ARTICLES

Resources

CONTENT HUB

Unlimited industry intelligence

ARTICLES

Insights on the edge

GUIDES

Your knowledge hub

PODCASTS

Ultimate AI knowledge

VIDEO SERIES

Engaging interviews with experts

AIPLAYER

OnDemand content

GUIDES

Dive into the essentials

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

COMPUTER VISION

EDGE COMPUTING

MACHINE LEARNING

DEEP LEARNING

ALL GUIDES

RESEARCH & REPORTS

Industry insights from us

AI SALARY SURVEY 2024

Share your salary & benchmark it against the industry

GENERATIVE AI 2023 REPORT

The ultimate guide to generative AI in 2023

COMPUTER VISION IN HEALTHCARE EBOOK

Dive into the future of healthcare

COMPUTER VISION LANDSCAPE 2024 SURVEY

Share your expertise!

CHIPS OF CHOICE

The ultimate guide to AI Hardware in 2022

AI SOFTWARE OF CHOICE

The ultimate guide to AI Software in 2022

ALL REPORTS

CERTIFICATION

Accelerate your career as a data science practitioner

CERTIFIED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PRACTITIONER [CAIP]

Concepts, technologies & tools

CERTIFIED DATA SCIENCE PRACTITIONER [CDSP]

Extract insight & communicate

BEST OF THE REST

Your AI highlights from elsewhere

AI CIRCUIT

Subscribe to the monthly newsletter

CREATE & CONTRIBUTE

Share your insights

CASE STUDIES

Events

VIRTUAL

Coming to a screen near you

THE NEED FOR PROACTIVE GOVERNANCE IN GENERATIVE AI

February 29, 2024

AI FESTIVAL

OnDemand

IN-PERSON SUMMITS

Events all over the world

OUR GLOBAL 2024 CALENDAR

AIAI SAN JOSE

April 16 & 17, 2024

GENERATIVE AI SUMMIT NEW YORK

June 12, 2024

GENERATIVE AI SUMMIT AUSTIN

July 10, 2024

AIAI BERLIN

October 2, 2024

AIAI BOSTON

October 16 & 17, 2024

AIAI LONDON

November 7, 2024

GENERATIVE AI SUMMIT TORONTO

December 4, 2024

REGIONAL MEETUPS

Open networking, pizza & drinks

AIAI MEETUPS

Check out all our meetups here

AIAI MEETUP | VIRTUAL

February 7, 2024

AIAI BOTOGÁ

February 15, 2024

SPEAKING & PARTNERSHIPS

Get involved as a speaker or sponsor

REQUEST TO SPEAK

Get behind the mic

REQUEST TO PARTNER

Exhibit, speak & showcase your tech

Partnerships

SPONSORSHIPS & ADVERTISING

Showcase to 1.5million+ builders & execs

BOOK LINKEDIN AD SPACE

Catapult your brand into the spotlight

EVENT PARTNERSHIPS

Exhibit, speak & showcase your tech

Community

NETWORK

Connect and collaborate

SLACK COMMUNITY

Network with 6,400+ AI practitioners

MEET THE AMBASSADORS

LINKEDIN COMMUNITY

Join 1.3+ million in the world’s largest AI group

MEETUPS

Connect, network and collaborate

LEARN

Level up your career

BECOME AN AMBASSADOR

ADVISORY COUNCIL

The AI Accelerator Institute engine room

AIAI CUSTOMER ADVISORY BOARD

Customer Advisory Board

About

THE BASICS

Our journey & how to reach us

MISSION

THE TEAM

CONTACT

GET INVOLVED

Get your name published

CREATE & CONTRIBUTE

PARTNER WITH US

SURVEYS

Watch this space!

What's new?
1


x close

Nothing to display...
or view by:
Computer Vision AI Accelerators Inference & Training Brain-Inspired Computing
Chip Design Compute 2.0 Data Centers Machine Learning

8 January 2024 6 min read


WHAT’S NEXT FOR AI AND INDUSTRY-ACADEMIA RELATIONS?



ANA SIMION

Read More

 1. Digital skills gap and industry-academia relations
 2. Industry Advisory Boards
 3. Industry-academia relations into 2024
 4. Conclusion
 5. Bibliography

Academia-industry relations: a critical linchpin in the United Kingdom’s desire
to be an Artificial Intelligence (AI) prowess on the world stage. Beyond
becoming a hiring partner and offering graduate programmes, there’s many ways in
which the industry can work with academia to carve out a path of AI knowledge.

Examples range from in-faculty incubators (designed to help students/graduates
launch their business idea), Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) (which link
academia and industry together to solve industry challenges) to being involved
strategically on Industry Advisory Boards (IABs).

As AI continually advances and transforms the world around us at breakneck
speeds, what’s next for this important relationship? 

The knowledge formed through the links between industry and academia was one of
several critical areas for advancement outlined in the UK’s National AI
Strategy: a framework introduced back in 2021 by the Department for Science,
Innovation and Technology.

The aim was to outline an action plan to help the UK become an AI superpower
behind the likes of the USA and China, covering areas ranging from increasing
the number of Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) to increasing investment in
critical areas for AI research, for example in Defence and Cyber Security.

In amongst outlining improvements listed above, the document showcased the
increasingly important role of academia in shaping understanding of the said
technologies. From this, we’ll start with the digital skills gap. 




DIGITAL SKILLS GAP AND INDUSTRY-ACADEMIA RELATIONS 

When talking tech, the digital skills gap finds a way of creeping into
conversations: an ever-increasingly important area where there just aren’t
enough skilled workers to fill the expanding list of digital-based vacancies.
When the National AI Strategy was first released, it outlined a 16% increase in
both AI and Data Science job vacancies in 2020 with 69% of vacancies being hard
to fill [1].

In addition, the Turing Institute’s AI Ecosystem Survey found 81% of respondents
agreed there were significant barriers in both recruitment and retraining of top
AI talent within their respective sectors in the UK [2].

Furthermore, a more recent 2023 Forbes IT Skills Gap Report found that over 93%
of businesses agreed an IT skills gap existed [3], with numerous companies
highlighting several key contributing factors, namely: 41% identifying a lack of
training and 37% believing the gap stems from a lack of relevant educational
opportunities [3].

When it came to the core skills in 2023, 2 in 5 employers recognised AI and
Machine Learning as being the top skills [3] and from a management standpoint,
71% of Chairpeople along with 71% of business partners believe AI holds the most
value in today’s market [3]. 

Narrowing the skills gap is an incredibly challenging endeavour, especially with
the dynamic nature of the macroeconomic forces pushing and pulling against both
industry and academia, but one way to start the effort is within Education.

Since the publication of the National AI strategy, over 2,500 Masters conversion
courses have been delivered in England, and in the first year of the
introduction of these programmes 1,200 students enrolled with 22% receiving
scholarships [1].

The Office for Students (OfS) have and continues to be an integral part of this,
having allocated £18.1 million since April 2020 to drive the delivery of 1,818
postgraduate course scholarships across the AI and Data Science spectrum [4].

To continue the solid uptake of enrolment, the OfS recently announced an
additional £8.1 million in funding to be distributed across 31 universities and
colleges (including 7 as a collaborative project) to deliver scholarships across
the 2023-24 academic year [4].

Whilst the funding boost aim is to continually increase the accessibility of
such courses, It’s important to recognise AI’s rapid development creates a
continually moving see-saw: industry beavering away behind the scenes to test
tools and find what works for them, whereas academia seeks to learn from
industry what students need to know to thrive in the job market.

Whilst the wider digital skills gap is an area of ongoing concern, industry are
also likely battling their own internal multi-dimensional skills gap: whether it
be understanding the ever-increasing list of new programming frameworks to
transform algorithms to actionable insights or understanding the ever-changing
role of data and how it’s affecting the hiring landscape.

It’ll therefore be key for both sides to monitor trends, but unless there's a
bottomless pit of capital to continually iterate resources at the pace they’re
released, it’ll be some time before benefits are keenly felt on the ground.


INDUSTRY ADVISORY BOARDS

Turning to an area of increasing importance is the Industry Advisory Board (or
IAB for short). Widely adopted at many institutions on a faculty or departmental
level (sometimes both, and sometimes even on a programme level), this area of
engagement is seen as a core method in which academia can pick industry’s brains
about the wider industrial environment that may not easily be observable from
inside a university.

There’s numerous angles on which industry can provide input but in a broader
context, the board is there to ensure the university department (and wider
faculty) has a commercially sound research, development and employability
strategy. In addition to the strategic element, members also provide external
insight into the department curriculum: making sure course modules teach
students in-demand skills.

It’s important to keep in perspective that whilst the board remit is there to
help steer the academics, the pace of technology creates tug of wars in how
operationally and commercially feasible it is for the department to change
course in the event of major technological innovation industry pilot en-masse. 




INDUSTRY-ACADEMIA RELATIONS INTO 2024

With digital skills gaps and Advisory Boards out of the way, this leaves the
question of what lies ahead. There’s two particular areas I feel will carry
increasing importance as we move into 2024, namely the Industry Advisory Boards
(IAB) and Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs). 

As module content evolves and the wider AI landscape shifts, the role of
industry steering academia (and vice versa) through the Tetris maze will be key
in ensuring students aren’t simply taught about but feel the value of the tools
they’re learning about. This day and age is no longer about simply producing
cutting-edge research: it’s about synthesising the cutting-edge knowledge of
both industry and academia to transform students into the next generation of
Data pioneers. 

Board Advisory aside, another area I envisage increased importance and
attachment to is Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs). These projects are key
in crafting undiscovered knowledge, innovation and creativity and as a result,
their impact has been felt far and wide.

Between 2010-2020, Innovate UK invested £223 million into KTP projects, with the
average grant sitting between £80-£100,000 per project [6]. Grant numbers aside
the benefits of KTPs have been felt across the wider economy, generating between
£1.7 and £2.3 billion in Gross Value Added (GVA) [6].

However, of equal importance is the tangible benefit in knowledge and
perspectives KTPs have delivered, with 79% of businesses feeling the benefit of
having academic expertise and as a result, were keen to engage with academia
[6].

On the flip side academia was equally enthusiastic, with 92% of academic
partners reporting an improvement in their understanding of industry challenges
and 75% developing more industry-focused teaching [6]. Knowledge is twice as
powerful if it’s shared, and if these trends continue that’ll help in some way
to fill the gap. 


CONCLUSION

As policymakers, industry and academia work to imagine ideas, create solutions
and inspire others to think big, relations between AI and Industry are more
important than ever. The formation of knowledge through decades of collaboration
will benefit those coming through the education system for years to come.

Strategies and Governmental frameworks alone won’t fix or simply narrow any
skills gap: Instead, it’ll come down to a combination of initiative, lots of
networking, balancing bureaucracy and an eagerness to think differently.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] National AI Strategy & Job Vacancies: HM Government (2021). National AI
Strategy. [online] Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/
614db4d1e90e077a2cbdf3c4/National_AI_Strategy_-_PDF_version.pdf. 

[2] Turing Institute AI Ecosystem Survey: AI ecosystem survey Informing the
National AI Strategy Summary report. (n.d.). Available at:
https://www.turing.ac.uk/
sites/default/files/2021-09/ai-strategy-survey_results_020921.pdf. 

[3] Forbes 2023 IT Skills Report: Thornhill, J. (2023). IT Skills Gap Report
2023. [online] Forbes Advisor UK. Available at:
https://www.forbes.com/uk/advisor/ business/software/digital-skills-gap/

[4] Office for Students Course Funding: Students, O. for (2023). OfS confirms
£8.1 million boost for postgraduate AI conversion courses as evaluation finds
promising signs of increase in diversity of graduates - Office for Students.
[online] www.officeforstudents.org.uk. Available at:
https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/
news-blog-and-events/press-and-media/ofs-confirms-81-million-boost-for
postgraduate-ai-conversion-courses-as-evaluation-finds-promising-signs-of
increase-in-diversity-of-graduates/ [Accessed 28 Dec. 2023]. 

[5] Zipdo Skills Gap Statistics: Anon, (n.d.). Essential Skills Gap Statistics
in 2023 • ZipDo. [online] Available at: https://zipdo.co/statistics/skills-gap/
[Accessed 28 Dec. 2023]. 

[6] Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KPT) 2023 Evaluation: Knowledge Transfer
Partnerships Evaluation Final Report. (2023). Available at: https://
www.ukri.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IUK-23102023-KTP-Evaluation-Final
Report-FINAL-Aug-23.pdf [Accessed 4 Jan. 2024].


LIKE WHAT YOU SEE? THEN CHECK OUT TONNES MORE.

From exclusive content by industry experts and an ever-increasing bank of real
world use cases, to 80+ deep-dive summit presentations, our membership plans are
packed with awesome AI resources.

Subscribe now Learn more


GET PRODUCT MARKETING CERTIFIED.

PMMC™ unleashes product marketers’ potential. Lauded by leading lights like
Facebook and HubSpot, it offers expert insights, priceless tuition, and awesome
resources. No topic missed. No page unturned.

Get certified

Written by:

ANA SIMION

Read More

Get industry insights


Join

AI Accelerator Institute
—
What’s next for AI and industry-academia relations?


Our mission is to help develop the next generation of machine intelligence
specifically focusing on accelerating AI at the edge.

For new and groundbreaking start-ups, we want to inspire and inform your
journey, and for those giants in the space, we want to provide the tools you
need to innovate and continue to propel your growth.

ABOUT
 * Contribute
 * Meet the team
 * Media Guide
 * Ambassadors
 * Mission

RESOURCES
 * Articles
 * Membership
 * Reports

GENERAL
 * Certification
 * Events
 * Community
 * Privacy Policy

Learn
Tech News Generative AI Computer Vision AI Infrastructure AICXO Governance &
Ethics Industry Application






newAI is no longer a choice.