Call for data sources and project ideas: Digital Futures Hackathon 2026

04 Jun 2026

We are pleased to invite academic colleagues to contribute datasets and project ideas for the upcoming Digital Futures Hackathon.

This initiative aims to connect researchers who hold large datasets with talented students eager to apply their digital and analytical skills to practical challenges. The hackathon offers a unique opportunity to advance projects that may currently lack the technical capacity or dedicated team to move forward, enabling rich datasets to be exploited and explored in new ways.

Priority will be given to projects that address challenges and opportunities within the Digital Futures priority areas (Digital Health, Digital Worlds, Digital Society, Digital Economy, Digital Skills, and AI@Manchester), while we also welcome other projects that can benefit from advanced computational analysis.

What we are looking for:

We welcome submissions that include:

• A short description of a research problem or project idea that students could  investigate using the dataset
• A description of the dataset that you own or is publicly available, in various formats (e.g., images, text corpora, structured/unstructured data, sensor data, audio, experimental data, etc.). If your application is successful, the dataset will be made available for students involved in the Hackathon. You don’t need to send the database at this stage, just a description of its content.

Projects can be exploratory, early stage, speculative, or aimed at producing proof of concepts.

This is a two-step process:

1. Call for Academic Submissions (May - July 2026)

Academic staff (from ECRs to Professors) submit datasets description and brief project ideas. A review panel will select projects suited for student development during the hackathon.

2. Student Hackathon Launch (2-days event in Autumn Term 2026 TBC)

Selected projects will be released to student teams, who will work intensively to produce insights, prototypes, visualisations, or early research outputs. A close collaboration with the academic will be needed in the first instance (no more than half a day) to further explain the project idea as well as the content of the data source. A final pitch exercise and presentation will be done from the students to show the academics what progress has been made. Promising projects developed during the Hackathon can apply for additional funding to hire the student(s) as RAs to continue the collaboration.

How to submit

Please send submissions (up to 1,000 words) to digitalfutures@manchester.ac.uk.