Rishi Sunak launches national maths academy to find ‘Alan Turings of tomorrow’

Rishi Sunak has vowed to find the “Alan Turings of tomorrow” as the Government announced £6 million for a National Academy for Maths that will make numeracy as important as reading.

Organisations are invited to apply to set up and run the new academy, which will champion maths, and prepare workers for jobs in AI, data science and computing.

It is a personal goal of the Prime Minister to boost maths skills and builds on plans to make teenagers study the subject up to the age of 18.

Mr Sunak has previously warned that the UK has an “anti-maths mindset” where poor attainment in the discipline is regarded as “socially acceptable”.

“This new National Academy for Maths is a big step in transforming our national approach to maths,” he said.

“It will lead the way in arming our society with the skills and knowledge to lead the globe in jobs of the future – like AI and computing – to discover the Alan Turings of tomorrow.

“Part of the plan is to prize numeracy for what it is – a key skill every bit as essential as reading.”

The academy will become the fifth UK National Academy, joining the Academy of Medical Sciences, the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society.

Although the UK has risen 10 places in international league tables since 2009, more than eight million adults in Britain have numeracy skills below those expected of a nine-year-old and around one third of young people fail GCSE maths.

The new academy will be expected to provide “credible, expert and timely” advice on maths to the Government and industry, which will help shape policy.

During the pandemic, the Government relied on modelling from individual organisations such as Imperial College and Bristol University, but the sector has voiced support for a leading organisation.

The Government is also keen for the academy to drive discoveries that will help the country be healthier and wealthier.

An open competition offering grant funding of up to £6 million over the next three years is being launched on Tuesday and applications can be submitted until June 4.

Andrew Griffith, the Science, Innovation and Research Minister, said: “Maths is at the root of so much in our lives, from groundbreaking discoveries that keep us healthy to the engineering we rely on to do our jobs and get us from A to B.

“As technology becomes even more central to our modern world, it is a skill that will only become more crucial in jobs of the future, from artificial intelligence to data science and beyond.

“The new National Academy focused on Mathematical Sciences will help raise the profile of maths in the UK and help the sector in making the impassioned case for such an important subject.”