  The problem of expressing a specific polynomial as the determinant of a
square matrix of affine-linear forms arises from algebraic geometry,
optimisation, complexity theory, and scientific computing. Motivated by recent
developments in this last area, we introduce the notion of a uniform
determinantal representation, not of a single polynomial but rather of all
polynomials in a given number of variables and of a given maximal degree. We
derive a lower bound on the size of the matrix, and present a construction
achieving that lower bound up to a constant factor as the number of variables
is fixed and the degree grows. This construction marks an improvement upon a
recent construction due to Plestenjak-Hochstenbach, and we investigate the
performance of new representations in their root-finding technique for
bivariate systems. Furthermore, we relate uniform determinantal representations
to vector spaces of singular matrices, and we conclude with a number of future
research directions.
