Current developments in data science have been employed across the commercial world but they also offer a wealth of possibilities for improving visitor experience in cultural institutions, with potential benefits on a significant scale. Indeed, in 2016-17, 52% of British people visited a museum and 74% visited a heritage site. This represents an encouraging level of engagement, however there remains significant potential for increasing participation. For example, figures from the US suggest that attendance at art museums, galleries and heritage sites showed a clear decline between 2002 and 2012. This is mirrored in recent UK figures; for example, visits to government sponsored museums and galleries declined by 0.8% in the single year from 2015/16 to 2016/17. To increase visitor numbers, and improve the experience for existing audiences, we need to develop a better understanding of visitors' responses and requirements. In line with this aim, this project will create a network to investigate the possibilities for using advanced data science to realise the full potential of museums' existing visitor data (e.g. visitor numbers, social media comments) in order to understand and improve visitor engagement. Our multidisciplinary network comprises academics from History, Psychology, Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, in combination with a diverse team of British and American museums, heritage organisations and technology companies: - Colonial Williamsburg (Virginia, US) is the world's largest living history museum, with over forty sites and two art museums. - Historic Royal Palaces runs six of the UK's most iconic palaces, including the Tower of London and Hampton Court. - The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, US) is one of America's oldest and most respected science museums. - Sussex Past runs a variety of heritage sites and museums including Fishbourne Roman Palace, Lewes Castle and Anne of Cleves House. - The JORVIK Group comprises five heritage attractions in the city of York, including the world-famous JORVIK Viking Centre. - Royal Holloway's Picture Gallery boasts a world-class collection of Victorian art. - Mechdyne is a leading innovator in visualisation, 3D, VR and machine learning in commercial contexts. - Smartify is an SME with an app that allows museum visitors to receive detailed information using AR and museums to receive the data analytics generated. The varied nature of these partnering cultural institutions will provide our network with a uniquely diverse range of perspectives that will be shared through a range of networking events and meetings. Our final meeting will identify concrete plans for future funded research projects and network development. The planned activities will also generate documentary records of the discussions. These will be disseminated across our partners and the AHRC with a view to informing the shape of future priorities in a constantly shifting technological landscape.

The Hub will create a seamless link between science and applications by building on our established knowledge exchange activities in quantum technologies. We will transform science into technology by developing new products, demonstrating their applications and advantages, and establishing a strong user base in diverse sectors. Our overarching ambition is to deliver a wide range of quantum sensors to underpin many new commercial applications. Our key objective is to ensure that the Hub's outputs will have been picked up by companies, or industry-led TSB projects, by the end of the funding period. The Hub will comprise: a strong fabrication component; quantum scientists with a demonstrated ability to combine scientific excellence with technological delivery; leading engineers with the broad collective expertise and connections required to develop and use new quantum sensors. We have identified, and actively involved, industry enablers to build a supply chain for quantum sensor technology. As well as direct physics connections to industry, the engineers provide strong links to relevant industrial users, thus providing information on industrial needs and enabling rapid prototype deployment in the field. To establish a coherent national collaborative effort, the Hub will include a UK network on quantum sensors and metrology, which will also exploit the connections that Prof Bongs and all Hub members have forged in Europe, the US and Asia. This inter-linkage ensures capture of the most advanced developments in quantum technology around the world for exploitation by the UK. Quantum sensors and metrology, plus some devices in quantum communication, are the only areas where laboratory prototypes have already proven superior to their best classical counterparts. This sets the stage, credibly, for rapid and disruptive applications emerging from the Hub. The selection of prototypes will be driven by commercial pull, i.e. each prototype project within the Hub must demonstrate, from the outset, industry or practitioner engagement from our engineering and/or industrial collaborators. We have strong industry support across several disciplines with the structures in place actively to manage technology and knowledge transfer to the industry sector. Particular roles are played by NPL and e2V. We will closely collaborate with NPL as metrology end-user on clock, magnetometer and potentially Watt balance developments with a lecturer-level Birmingham-NPL fellow contributed by Birmingham University and our PRDAs spending ~17 man-years in addition to 3-5 PhD students on these joint projects in the Advanced Metrology Laboratory/incubator space. E2v have a unique industrial manufacturing/R&D facility co-located within the School of Physics and Astronomy at Nottingham that has already catalysed the expansion of their activities into the Quantum Technology domain. Public Engagement conveying the Hub's breakthroughs will be a high priority - for example annually at the Royal Society Summer Exhibitions. In addition to cohort-training of 80 PhD students working within the Hub, the Hub will contribute to the training of ~500 PhD students via electronically-shared lectures (many already running within the e-learning graduate schools MPAGS, MEGS, SEPNET and SUPA) across the institutions within the Hub. The Hub will create an internationally-leading centre of excellence with major impact in the area of quantum sensors and metrology. To widen the impact of the Hub and ensure long-term sustainability, we will actively pursue European and other international collaborative funding for both underlying fundamental research and the technology development.