About Us

TALISMAN team members are based at two sites: the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) at University College London and the Centre for Spatial Analysis and Policy (CSAP) at the University of Leeds. Both CASA and CSAP are leading centres of expertise in spatial modelling and simulation.

About CASA

The UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) is a unit in the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment (The Bartlett) and is physically located at 90 Tottenham Court Road, London.

CASA’s focus is to be at the forefront of what is one of the grand challenges of 21st Century science: to build a science of cities from a multidisciplinary base, drawing on cutting edge methods, and ideas in modeling, complexity, visualisation and computation. The organisation’s current mix of architects, geographers, mathematicians, physicists, archeologists and computer scientists makes CASA a unique department within UCL.

CASA’s vision is to be central to this new science, the science of smart cities, and relate it to city planning, policy and architecture in its widest sense. The focus is on advancing the state of the art through research complemented by graduate study, undergraduate teaching, consultancy and distance learning.

About CSAP

Leeds has a long tradition of providing cutting-edge analysis techniques and policy predictions based on the latest science and information.  The Centre for Spatial Analysis and Policy builds on that tradition by developing innovative ways of looking at the world to understand business, society and the environment at different spatial scales and by providing applied or policy-related analyses of geographical behaviour.

Research at the centre is varied and includes population dynamics, migration, geodemographics, retailing, education and health.  CSAP has specific expertise in analysis and modelling methods including microsimulation, agent-based modelling, spatial interaction models, AI techniques, demographic estimation and projection, and applications of GIS.

Whilst much of CSAP’s research is UK Research Council funded, the centre also undertakes research in partnership with a number of European, national, regional and local public sector institutions, as well as private sector organisations.

CSAP teaches Masters programmes and Undergraduate modules based on the latest research, enabling students to acquire quantitative skills that are in demand in the real world, as well as training for academic research careers. CSAP also manages a highly successful open distance learning (ODL) programme in GIS.