2011 London riots: Improving public understanding of mathematical modelling
Submitting Institution
University College LondonUnit of Assessment
Mathematical SciencesSummary Impact Type
SocietalResearch Subject Area(s)
Studies In Human Society: Criminology, Policy and Administration
Summary of the impact
While conducting research into the London riots of 2011, researchers in
UCL's Department of Mathematics initiated two additional outreach
projects: (1) a short film, made to explore the social impacts of the work
and to engage with the communities affected by the events, and (2) a
visualisation tool, developed to demonstrate to the public the potential
of UCL's mathematical riot model.
The film involved a two-way discussion with youth charities, youth
workers and ex-gang members across the capital, improving their attitudes
towards the research and their understanding of the model, while the final
version of the film raised awareness of the underlying social issues and
stimulated a great deal of public debate online. The visualisation tool —
in game form — has proved successful at events and festivals across the
country in stimulating public interest in science.
These projects, along with the original paper, have received a good deal
of media attention online, in press and on national television, serving to
raise awareness, improve understanding and prompt public debate about the
riots, the role of youth charities in London and the potential use of
mathematical modelling to address questions about the UK's social systems.
Underpinning research
The Department of Mathematics at UCL has a strong background in exploring
the relevance of mathematical concepts to problems of the real world,
particularly those of interest to policy makers. For example, Steven
Bishop (Professor 2004-present) examined in 2010 the potential of
employing systems dynamics approaches to policy decisions [1], and
conceptualised combining the methods of bottom-up system dynamics with
statistical modeling in 2012 [2]. The techniques and ideas from this work
formed the basis of the department's mathematical model of a recent real
world problem: the 2011 London riots.
In summer 2011, London experienced the worst period of sustained rioting,
violence, looting and arson seen in the UK for over 20 years. Following
these events, Bishop and Hannah Fry (Research Associate 2010-2012) from
the Department of Mathematics collaborated with researchers from UCL's
Department of Security and Crime Science, UCL's Centre for Advanced
Spatial Analysis (CASA) and the Metropolitan Police Service to undertake
an interdisciplinary project, researching the causes of the London riots
with the aim of informing policing strategies for similar events in the
future.
The initial part of the collaborative London riots research project
revolved around a dataset of all arrests made in connection with the
riots, including the home and offence location of each suspect. The
richness of the dataset allowed for a spatial and temporal statistical
analysis of the riots, highlighting the important factors such as
deprivation, transport and the role that retail centres played in the
events. This statistical analysis then served as the basis for a second,
more speculative research challenge: constructing a mathematical model of
the riots capable of replicating the general patterns and dynamics
identified, with the potential to investigate the effects of a range of
alternative policing strategies. The model, built by Fry and Bishop in
2012 and published in Nature's Scientific Reports in February 2013 [3],
aimed to exploit the analogies between the mechanisms highlighted in the
earlier analysis, and existing well-studied models of the physical and
natural world. In the three-stage process employed, models of epidemiology
reflected the contagious nature of the `idea to riot'; models of retail
spending flows were exploited to describe how the rioters converged at
certain areas throughout the city; and Lotka-Volterra dynamics allowed for
simulated interaction between rioters and police.
Despite limited information on initial disturbances, the model captures
many of the significant patterns seen in the data and accurately predicts
which areas of the city were more susceptible than others, yielding
insight into the mechanisms that drew people into the riots. The
statistical analysis served to demonstrate that rioters were predominantly
in their late teens or early twenties and came from some of the poorest
areas of London — areas with the worst schools, lowest incomes and highest
unemployment levels. Alongside these findings, the model also provides a
means with which to test various policing strategies and serves as a proof
of concept for future collaborations with the police service.
Mathematical models based on real-world data to assist with predictive
policing are a relatively new area of interest within the research
community. This contribution by UCL offers some novel techniques and
serves well as a proof-of-concept for future work.
References to the research
[1] Systems approaches for critical decisions, J.C.R. Hunt, S.R. Bishop
and Y. Timoshkina, pp. 197-202, In: Progress in Industrial Mathematics
at ECMI 2008, Mathematics in Industry 15 (2010), doi:10/d9csq6
[2] System dynamics applied to operations and policy decisions, J.C.R.
Hunt, Y. Timoshkina, P.J. Baudains and S.R. Bishop, European Review,
20, 324-342 (2012) doi:10/ph8
[3] A mathematical model of the London riots and their policing, T.P.
Davies, H. Fry, A.G. Wilson and S. Bishop, Nature Scientific Reports,
3, 1303 (2013) doi:10.1038/srep01303
Research grant: EPSRC ENFOLD-ing — Explaining, Modelling, and
Forecasting Global Dynamics; Reference: EP/H02185X/1; Dates: 2010-2015;
Value: circa £3 million across several UCL departments; PI: Professor Sir
Alan Wilson, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis; Professor Steven
Bishop, Department of Mathematics
Details of the impact
UCL research into the London riots of 2011 has stimulated a significant
amount of public interest, debate and discussion about the issues
surrounding the riots and about mathematical modelling. This has been
achieved through a number of public engagement activities, including
talks, a short film and a game.
While conducting the underpinning research, Fry felt it was important to
initiate a discussion with members of the communities affected by the
riots, particularly given the striking links between rioter involvement
and deprivation in London that were uncovered in the statistical analysis
of the data. To help prevent riots from happening again, and to understand
why so many young people across London chose to riot, she wanted to learn
more about the social issues within rioters' communities that led to their
involvement; this was the initial motivation behind a series of meetings
between Fry and various youth charities, youth workers and ex-gang members
across the capital.
After several informal discussions, Fry took part in the inaugural EPSRC
and UCL Focus on the Positive public event in May 2012. In these events,
researchers present their ideas for tackling issues and the audience vote
for a project that they think will make a real difference. Fry suggested a
need to raise awareness of the difficulties affecting young people, of
which the riots were just a single manifestation, and pledged to spend the
£1,000 prize creating a short film to give a voice to young people in
deprived areas of London: the very people blamed in the wake of the 2011
riots. Her aim was to improve public understanding of the issues uncovered
in the paper as well as the difficulties around a lack of funding for
youth services, an additional problem that had been highlighted in her
conversations with affected communities. After debating the various issues
that had been presented, the 58 members of the audience voted to fund
Fry's project, demonstrating that the research stimulated public discourse
and interest in the topic [A].
During the research for the film, Fry visited a number of affected
communities, including Blackfriars Settlement, a young people's charity in
Southwark; youth workers in Brixton; ex-gang members in Croydon; and
teachers within Pupil Referral Units in Enfield (PRUs are centres for
pupils unable to attend mainstream school, often due to emotional and/or
behavioural difficulties). These meetings allowed for a two-way
discussion, providing a context to the data for Fry, while changing the
attitudes of the individuals and organisations involved towards
mathematics, police intervention and academia. One of these discussions,
between Fry and Hackney resident Pauline Pearce (who gained exposure
during the riots for confronting looters in her local area), was filmed as
a case study for a secondary project, funded by the EPSRC, celebrating the
impact of the Focus on the Positive events [B]. Pearce said of Fry's work
"You have really opened my eyes — I don't know numbers [...] but you have
spoken a language that people can understand" [B].
Can Maths Predict a Riot?, the short film produced by Fry with her
Focus on the Positive funding, was released in January 2013. It has been
well received by a variety of audiences, with over 5,600 views on YouTube as
of 31 July 2013, and has sparked discussion and debate amongst the public,
as evidenced by the comment stream on YouTube [C]. Pearce, who has since
joined the Liberal Democrats and stood for election within Hackney, offered
her feedback on the film and pledged to promote it within her community,
helping further to raise awareness of the work and its links to social
issues within deprived areas of the city. She said: "You'll be amazed at how
much your word will get around" [B]. The film also stimulated members of the
public and the media to write about the work online; for example,
influential visualisation blog flowingdata (300,000 visitors a month) [D]
and science communication website popsci.com (1.2 million visitors a month)
[E] both featured articles about Fry's work on their homepages (on 18 and 19
July 2013 respectively). These high-profile articles then led to many other
websites (e.g. Professional Security Magazine, Phys.org and Laboratory
Equipment), blogs (e.g. Urban Demographics, Paul de Gregorio and Snap VRS),
Twitter and Google+ users writing about the research, including a tweet
shared by Labour MP Tom Watson to his 130,000 followers [F].
Alongside the short film, the mathematical model potentially offered
police an opportunity to examine various strategic scenarios, but was
inaccessible in its original form. To address this issue and present the
model in a way that is useful and intuitive for potential stakeholders, a
proof of concept `computer-game' style interface was created by Fry and a
team of UCL computer scientists in April 2012. The game is presented on a
touch table, with a map of London projected on to the screen. The player
reacts to riots spreading across the map by arranging Lego police cars in
a configuration to minimise the damage. As the simulation detects the
placement of the cars using an Xbox Kinect, the model runs in the
background, reacting accordingly.
By interacting with the riot table, members of the public are able to
explore its mechanisms in a tactile and engaging manner. This helps them
to gain an improved understanding of how this kind of mathematical
modelling could be used in the future to benefit the police and society.
Since its creation, the riot table has been taken to various conferences
and festivals, including the Analogies conference at UCL on 20 April 2012
(with 400 visitors) and the Leeds Smart Cities Exhibition between 8 and 10
November 2012 (1,500 members of the public). At each event, participants'
scores were tweeted to a live leader-board, which added a competitive
element and stimulated public interest throughout the day. In total, the
game was played 226 times in 2012, with each score recorded on the riot
table Twitter account [G].
In terms of the research, the Nature Scientific Reports paper was also
well received by the public. The open-access nature of the publication
allowed the UCL researchers to distribute and publicise the work to a
wider audience, informing people of the potential of mathematical
modelling and improving their understanding of the methods employed. As of
31 July 2013, the paper had over 12,200 views on the Nature website [H].
It also had an altmetric score of 149, ranking in the top 1% of all
articles of a similar age rated by the system. An altmetric score is based
on the online attention that an article receives, and includes both social
media and mainstream news media; the high score received by the UCL paper
indicates that it stimulated a large volume of public interest in the
research.
The paper also attracted a good deal of media coverage on publication,
with articles in Wired magazine (audience of 3 million) and science blog
ars-technica (website has more than 10 million unique readers per month).
BBC London News also ran a feature on the model on 21 February 2013,
including an interview with a UCL research student, and the work received
national attention with a piece about the model by BBC's Newsnight on 12
March 2013. The associated publicity raised awareness of UCL's work,
evidenced by increased online views of the paper on both occasions [H],
and in turn led to a greater public understanding of this relatively new
field of research. The online attention surrounding the Can Maths
Predict a Riot? film in the latter part of July 2013 also prompted a
significant increase in views of the paper and reignited a general
interest in the underlying research [H].
Alongside the paper, Fry was invited to speak about the research into the
riots at the first TEDxUCL event in June 2012, to an audience of 100
members of the public. The footage of the talk was featured on the front
page of TED.com for over three weeks in August 2012, and as of 31 July
2013 had over 500,000 views across all TED channels, ranking in the top 60
TEDx videos of all time (out of more than 30,940 videos). The stimulation
of public interest and discourse on the research topic, and on complexity
science in general, is further evidenced by the intense debate sparked
amongst the public, with over 1,000 detailed comments and `likes' on the
TED website [I] and YouTube channel [J] by the end of the REF impact
period. The talk also prompted several members of the public to contact
Hannah Fry about the work, opening the opportunity for a two-way
discussion. Examples of comments received online and via email include
[K]:
"Very, very good, opened my eyes."
"I was very inspired by the fascinating TEDx talk."
"Your TEDx talk explained complexity in an accessible succinct manner,
I'm planning my next semester and have your presentation on a list of
supplemental materials."
Sources to corroborate the impact
[A] Corroboration that Fry won the Focus on the Positive event can be
found online; for example, see the New York Times webpage: http://nyti.ms/GWDL93
(halfway down the page).
[B] Video exploring the impact of Focus on the Positive, available online
at YouTube: http://youtu.be/G4XrhcQ5khs
— corroborates the quotes from Pauline Pearce.
[C] Comment stream on the Can maths predict a riot? video,
available online at YouTube: http://youtu.be/cY5iARq0nCc
— corroborates that the research and the video sparked public discussion
and debate.
[D] Blog post on flowingdata.com: http://flowingdata.com/2013/07/18/predicting-riots/
— corroborates that the film stimulated public interest in the research.
[E] Article on popsci.com: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-07/math-rioting-looks-lot-shopping
— corroborates that the film stimulated media interest in the research.
[F] Tweet shared by Labour MP Tom Watson:
https://twitter.com/TimPendry/status/361164461022781440
— corroborates that the film stimulated public interest in the research.
[G] Riot table Twitter account: https://twitter.com/RiotSim
— corroborates the number of scores recorded on the riot table and hence
the number of players.
[H] Article metrics for the Nature Scientific Reports paper:
http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130221/srep01303/metrics
— corroborates the number of page views and corroborates that the paper
has a high altmetric score, which indicates that it has stimulated a high
amount of public interest.
[I] TEDx talk on TED.com: http://www.ted.com/talks/hannah_fry_is_life_really_that_complex.html
— the detailed discussions in the comments corroborate that the research
has stimulated public interest and discourse on the topic and on
complexity science in general.
[J] TEDx talk on the TEDx YouTube channel: http://youtu.be/LnQYJa9-aR0
— the detailed discussions in the comments corroborate that the research
has stimulated public interest and discourse on the topic and on
complexity science in general.
[K] A compilation of feedback from three members of the public is
available on request, and corroborates that the research stimulated public
interest and informed understanding of mathematical modelling and
applications of complexity theory to the real world.