The Warwick Institute for the Science of Cities was established in 2013 as part of Warwick’s international collaboration with the Centre for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) at New York UniversityLink opens in a new window. Operationally, WISC functions as a research centre under the banner of the Sustainable Cities GRP and is currently directed by Professor Jon CoaffeeLink opens in a new window.

WISC focuses on the means to gather city-scale data, and the apparatus to transform this data into knowledge, capitalising on emerging developments in big data and in interdisciplinary solutions to the world’s urban challenges. Since its inception WISC members have used new urban science techniques to develop tools and solutions that can capture, integrate and analyse existing and emerging city data and showcase how this can be used to secure improved socio-economic outcomes for cities and its citizens.

WISC functions as an interdisciplinary ‘aggregator’ to bring together existing knowledge and expertise and applies this to the urban environment. The institute has also partnered with Kings College, London (KCL) in launching CUSP LondonLink opens in a new window in 2018 and played a key role in the establishment of an urban analytics strand within the work programme of the Alan Turing InstituteLink opens in a new window. In 2014 WISC was awarded a EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Urban Science and Progress,Link opens in a new window based in the Department of Computer Science, which has to date seen around 50 PhD student graduate.