The UK Government has announced a £6m grant, inviting organisations to develop a national academy dedicated to maths and science-linked industries like AI and nuclear.
An open competition will run where organisations can apply for the grant funding, which will distributed over the next three years. It will be open until 4 June.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said the move was being launched to support evolving technology, which is changing “faster than ever” and which “are critical to the jobs of the future – like AI, nuclear and compute”.
It said the grant can “set the UK on a path to a brighter future that rewards hard work, celebrates ambition, and gives young people the skills they need to get on in life,”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it is “a big step in transforming our national approach to maths”, and that it will help the UK to “discover the Alan Turing of tomorrow” as well as “[to] arm our society with the skills and knowledge to lead the globe in jobs of the future.”
“[It is] part of the plan to prize numeracy for what it is – a key skill every bit as essential as reading,” Sunak continued.
The organisation will provide policy advice on mathematics to the government, as well as improve and develop mathematical skills across the UK in sectors from artificial intelligence to data science.
It will “raise the profile of maths in the UK” and “help the sector in making the impassioned case for such an important subject”, former City minister and current Science, Innovation and Research Minister Andrew Griffith said.
“Maths is at the root of so much in our lives, from ground-breaking discoveries that keep us healthy to the engineering we rely on to do our jobs and get us from A to B,” Griffith added.
The body “will not be a Government body or agency”, DSIT said, and in the long term will be expected to “seek complementary sources of private and third-sector funding”.
Similar academies include the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering.