Uni part of £20m coding group
PRIME MINISTER ANNOUNCES NEW INSTITUTE OF CODING
Sunderland University will be part of a new £20million Institute of Coding which has been announced by the Prime Minister.
Sunderland alongside Newcastle and Northumbria universities will benefit from £2million of the budget and bring together the three universities with industry partners including Accenture, Sage, P&G and Nissan.
The next generation of digital specialists will be created through the new Institute of Coding, a consortium of universities, businesses and industry experts, set up to tackle the UK’s digital skills gap.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum 2018 in Davos, the Prime Minister outlined how the institute will create new degree level courses to equip people of all ages with the digital skills they need.
The consortium includes industry giants such as IBM, Cisco, BT and Microsoft, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), 25 UK universities, and professional bodies such as the British Computer Society and CREST.
The 25 universities in- volved, led by the University of Bath, range from sector leaders in business and computer science (UCL and Newcastle University) to experts in arts and design (University of the Arts) to specialists in widening participation and outreach (Open University and Birkbeck College).
Professor Alastair Irons, Academic Dean for the Faculty of Computer Science at Sunderland University, said: “We are delighted to be part of the successful consortium for the Institute of Coding and look forward to working with the group nationally and partner universities in the North East to deliver the objectives of the project.”