About

Mission

The UC Institute for Prediction Technology (UCIPT) is a multidisciplinary, multicampus collaborative accelerating innovations that leverage social technologies to predict human behaviors and outcomes.

Vision

One in four people worldwide (over a billion people) are using social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, to create, share, and discuss content. Social media users are continuously generating large volumes of public data containing information on their activities, plans and intentions, moods and opinions, and social interactions. UCIPT develops tools for analyzing this data to inform a wide range of important solutions for both the public and private sectors. Some examples of potential research applications include:

Tracking risk behaviors to predict disease, crime, poverty, or other negative outcomes and inform intervention efforts
Discerning predictors of political opinion, social and moral values, academic success, or community involvement
Understanding how and why people use certain technologies, buy certain products, or follow certain trends

Our ultimate vision is to become a highly interdisciplinary, multisector hub of researchers, data scientists, and community partners that utilize, evaluate, and refine our tools and techniques for a broad array of applications.

Leadership

UCIPT was founded in 2015 after winning the University of California President’s Research Catalyst Award. There are currently faculty leaders at four campuses: UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Irvine. UCLA is the hosting institution, with Dr. Sean Young of the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine serving as Executive Director. Click here for a brief biography of each member of the research team.

Funding for UCIPT is provided by Facebook, Intel, the National Institutes of Health, and the University of California.