THE ISAAC NEWTON INSTITUTE FOR MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES

World-leading mathematics research

www.newton.ac.uk

The Newton Institute The Newton Institute is the UK’s national mathematics research institute. It was opened in July 1992 at Cambridge University after the Science and Engineering Research Council had invited proposals from a number of universities for such an institute.

Since opening it has established an international reputation for leadership and research excellence. It is now acknowledged as a global leader in pure and applied mathematics research.

Scientific Programmes The Institute facilitates collaborative research on problems drawn from across mathematics and mathematical sciences. Research is conducted through structured programmes lasting four to six months with 30 or more core participants.

The Institute has run some 90 research programmes in 18 years. More than forty Fields, Nobel, Abel and Wolf prize winners have participated in these programmes. More than 1,000 researchers visit the Institute each year, from all corners of the world.

The Institute is located in Cambridge University’s Centre for Mathematical Sciences. Its building is open, elegant and light-filled. It is spacious and timeless and has become a model for the design of institutes elsewhere in the world. Even the elevator contains a blackboard – and it is used.

The very best programmes are selected by the Institute. The selection criteria are that a programme should have great scientific merit and be at the forefront of current developments where a significant scientific breakthrough can be expected.

Most programmes are cross-disciplinary and all are expected to have the highest quality leadership and participants.

By identifying subjects that have both substantive mathematical significance and clear common ground for collaborative study, the Institute cuts through the departmental boundaries that often inhibit interdisciplinary research.

Defining Moments Some special moments define and typify the Newton Institute and the programmes it runs.

Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose came to the Institute to research and debate fundamental ideas about the nature of space-time, gravity and quantum mechanics.

Andrew Wiles announced his famous proof of Fermat’s last theorem at the Institute in the course of three lectures he gave on one of its programmes.

For its work the Institute was awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for world class achievement in education.

Research Topics The Institute furthers research in mathematical sciences in the broadest sense. It has contributed to advances in subjects such as

The spread of epidemics, how the heart beats, evolutionary biology

Climate models, turbulence in fluid flow, the cracking and failure of materials

Computer vision, security and cryptology Financial markets and economic trading Particle physics, general relativity Geometry, number theory, algebra, topology.

Benefits to UK Mathematics The Institute brings major benefits to UK mathematics.

Programmes are run by world leaders in research. Two thirds of participants come from outside the UK, giving UK mathematicians and mathematical scientists the opportunity to interact with the best people in their fields.

Programmes bring together researchers with different backgrounds and expertise and often result in life-changing collaborations and new research directions.

The Institute has built an open access digital library of seminars and lectures, so that its research is available globally as it happens; more than 65 Terabytes have been downloaded.

Scientific Steering Committee

At the Institute’s core is its Scientific Steering Committee (SSC). This consists of 14 eminent British and European mathematical scientists. It is led by Sir John Ball from the University of Oxford and includes the Institute’s Director, Sir David Wallace.

The SSC initiates proposals for programmes and responds to proposals made to the Institute by other leading mathematical scientists. It then leads a rigorous peer review process involving up to eight referees, to ensure that every programme is of the highest quality.

In forming its judgements, the SSC considers these peer review reports in the context of: the quality of the research proposed; its timeliness; the opportunities it offers to bring together different areas; value to the UK community; and the potential impact which the special environment of the Institute can engender.

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Case Study – Surface Water Waves This programme was the longest-ever academic meeting to focus on water waves and was the first to bring together western and former USSR scientists. It resulted in a breakthrough in our understanding of, and ability to predict, freak waves. This has led to routine guidance being available for shipping from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

A collaboration was initiated on the programme that led to a hurricane forecasting model now used by the US National Hurricane Center. An initiative also began to investigate ocean-atmosphere boundary impact on weather and climate. Many papers, two books and a Dirac medal came directly out of the work on the programme.

Case Study – Machine Learning The Institute ran a landmark programme on machine learning and neural networks. This put probabilistic aspects of neural networks on a sound footing for the first time. The TrueSkill ranking system for Microsoft’s Xbox Live was a direct spin-off, as was the now widely used BUGS Bayesian inference software. A paper on Bayesian measures of complexity by Spiegelhalter et al. that came out of the programme was the third most cited paper in the mathematical sciences over the next decade.

Case Study – Energy Systems Week

This special event was held during a programme on the use of probability theory in telecommunications. It explored applications of probability to managing energy networks supplied by intermittent renewable energy sources. New collaborations formed between experts in engineering, economics and mathematical game theory and research was initiated into the mathematical foundations of energy networks including buffering, storage and transmission.

Funding and Fundraising

The Institute costs £2.3 million per annum to run. This amount includes the running costs of the Institute itself as well as the living allowances and housing costs of the visiting mathematical scientists; its current funding allows also modest contributions towards stipends and travel expenses.

The Institute runs four main research programmes each year as well as a number of workshops and outreach activities. The cost of a research programme is typically around £500,000.

Approximately 70% of the Institute’s funding is provided by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under a grant that expires early in 2014. The balance comes from other grants and donations and from income on £6 million of reserves and endowment provided by the University of Cambridge and its Colleges and foundations, companies and individuals.

The Institute is currently seeking to raise between £5 million and £10 million. Members of the Institute’s Development Board have so far donated £350,000 to its fund raising campaign. The Institute is strongly supported as a high priority by the Cambridge Vice-Chancellor, Sir Leszek Borysiewicz.

Mathematics Beyond the Institute The Institute actively interacts with the UK’s mathematical science community through a network of correspondents at universities and institutes. It feeds the results of its programmes into industry through ‘Open for Business’ meetings held in Cambridge and London.

It has established a City network of around 100 supporters amongst senior bankers, investment managers and business people through private dinners held at the London house of the Institute’s chairman, Howard Covington, and at the Royal Society at which leading mathematical scientists discuss their work. Guest speakers have included Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, Martin Rees and James Lovelock and topics have ranged from how the universe began through the results coming out of the Large Hadron Collider to possibilities for geo-engineering.

To involve younger people in its work, the Institute brought to the UK for the first time the Imaginary exhibition. This uses advanced graphics to allow school children to construct sculptural images that illustrate algebraic formulae.

The Institute reaches a broader audience by holding public lectures and participating in the Cambridge Science Festival. It has also run a poster campaign on mathematics for the London Underground.

Development Board of the Newton Institute Mr Howard Covington Chairman, Management Committee of the Isaac Newton Institute

Professor Peter Goddard Director, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

Mr David Harding Founder and CEO, Winton Capital Management

Dr Mike Lynch Founder and CEO, Autonomy PLC

Lord Rees of Ludlow Master of Trinity College, Astronomer Royal, Former President of the Royal Society

Professor Bernard Silverman Chief Scientific Advisor to the Home Office

Mr Lawrence Staden Founder and Chief Executive, GLC

Ms Jane Tozer Non-Executive Director, John Lewis Partnership

Professor Sir David Wallace Director, Isaac Newton Institute

If you would like to find out more about the Institute and its world-leading research, please contact

David Wallace, Institute Director david.wallace@newton.ac.uk

Howard Covington, Chair of the Management Committee h.covington@newton.ac.uk

Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences

20 Clarkson Road Cambridge CB3 0EH, UK www.newton.ac.uk

Mr Howard Covington Chair, Management Committee

Formerly CEO of New Star Asset Management and former Head of the European business of Wasserstein Perella

Professor Sir David Wallace Director, Newton Institute

Master of Churchill College Cambridge and former Vice-Chancellor of Loughborough University

Professor Caroline Series Chair of the Correspondents

Professor of Mathematics at the Warwick Mathematical Institute

Professor Sir John Ball Chair, Scientific Steering Committee

Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Oxford and Director, Oxford Centre for Nonlinear PDE