News from Head of
School
Interruption to Service
My apologies for failing to send out a newsletter
last week – I hope some of you noticed! I’m afraid that several
unexpected calls on my time came up at short notice, and had to take
precedence.
CS/Informatics Review
You will be pleased to hear that the long-running
discussions regarding the future of the School of
Informatics have
finally reached a conclusion. I can give you an overview now, and
hope to be in a position to circulate a more detailed statement later in
the day, once it has been agreed with the Faculty of
Humanities.
The existing School of Informatics will be repositioned so that there
is no significant overlap with the School of Computer
Science. It will be renamed the School
of Information and Society
(SoIS), to reflect its humanities-oriented mission, and those
staff with primarily computer science expertise (around 15) will transfer
to our School. Responsibility for existing teaching programmes will
be reallocated on the basis of their fit to the (revised) missions and
staffing of the two Schools, whilst a small working party with
representation from CS, SoIS, MBS and EEE will be charged with agreeing a
coherent set of programmes in ‘computing’, reflecting the needs of the
market, rather than the internal organisation of the University. It
is understood that CS will provide the teaching for any course units that
fall within its remit. There is also enthusiastic support from both
Faculties for the creation of a multidisciplinary Centre for Informatics,
which will place Manchester on the map by taking a
strategic approach to the role of information and computing across all
disciplines.
The broad outcome was agreed recently
by the Faculty of Humanities Policy and Resources Committee.
Important implementation details were agreed by the two Heads of School
and the two Deans last week – in particular, the ‘shape’ and scope of the
new School were defined in such a way as to avoid any serious possibility
of overlap with CS. The plan now is to move rapidly to implement the
agreed reconfiguration. This will present us all with some
‘interesting’ challenges, but I believe that what has been agreed is as
good an outcome for CS, and for the University as a whole, as we could
have hoped for.
Research Event
As those who attended will know, the research
event that was held in Buxton at the end of last week was a great
success. The format of pairwise meetings between groups led to
stimulating discussion, and many new ideas for collaborative research.
Feedback was almost universally positive, and there was considerable
support for holding a similar event in two or three years from now.
Congratulations to Ursula, John Gurd, and Steve Furber for coming up with the concept
and, particularly, to Ursula and Anna for their faultless organisation of
the event. Congratulations also to Andy
Brass who, in collaboration with the EISS group came up
with the winning entry in the new
project competition, combining expertise in fabricating arrays
of magnetic devices with an understanding of the emerging need for
comprehensive characterisation of biological systems, in situ, to arrive at a new
measurement concept that could have a significant impact in computational
systems biology.
Events this
Week
top
UG Exam
Board
3 Jul
06
UG Internal Exam Board: 1st
& 2nd year
progression, plus any unresolved issues relating tofinal
year students.
0930, IT407
School Leadership
Team
3 Jul 06
Annual Research and Resources
reports
1415, Atlas 1
Bayesian categorical data analysis with factor
level
merging
4 Jul 06
Prof. Claudia Tarantola (University of
Pavia)
1600, Room 2.31, CCSR, 2nd Floor, Crawford House,
Booth Street
East
More
Information
School
Board
5 Jul 06
Professor Nancy Rothwell, Vice President for
Research, will be attending the Board and will give a short
presentation.
1130, IT407 (please note unusual
time!)
School UG Graduation
Party
5 Jul 06
We will be celebrating the
graduation of our UG students
1430 – 1530, prize-giving 1445, graduation
ceremony 1645.
Regular Seminar Series
See links
in contents bar for information on seminar series organised by the
School of
CS, E-Science North
West and National Centre for Text Mining.
Future School
Events
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School
BBQ
14 Jul 06
1400 onwards – details to follow
Future
External
Events
top
CLASS (Clerical and Secretarial Support)
Network
30 Jul 06
One Day Conference giving staff the opportunity to
attend a range of personal and professional development sessions and the
chance to network with colleagues from across the University.
More
details and Registration
Interdisciplinary Summer School on Complex
Systems
20 – 29 Aug 06
From Individual to Collective
Behaviour in Large-Scale Complex Systems
Organised by the Schools of Computer Science,
Mathematics and Physics
St.
Martin's College,
Ambleside.
More
Information
Lunchtime Yoga Classes – Karon
Mee
Every Tues
1200 – 1300 Tues, Staff House
UMSA members £1.50; non-UMSA £2.00 per
class
Funding
Opportunities
top
RAEng Industrial Secondment
Scheme
Open
An opportunity for university lecturers in
engineering to gain state-of-the-art industrial
experience.
More
Information
BBSRC International Scientific Interchange Scheme
(ISIS)
Open
To help scientists make and establish new contacts
with their international counterparts.
More
Information
RAEng Global Research
Awards
Open
Projects in centres of excellence overseas
focussing on stimulating wealth creation and improvements in the quality
of life.
More
Information
BBSRC Research Equipment Initiative (REI)
2006
28 Jun 06
For the purchase of mid-range multi-user,
multi-project equipment.
More
Information
The Leverhulme Trust - Research Leadership Awards
New
21 Jul 06
The scheme is aimed at those who have succeeded in
beginning a university career but who are then confronted with the task of
building a research team of sufficient scale to tackle an identified but
distinctive research objective. The Trust is limiting the number of
applications to one from each university and anyone from this Faculty who
is interested in being considered by the University's Research Group
should send the Associate Dean for Research, Professor
Helen Gleeson, a 1 page outline of their case by
Friday 21st July.
More
Information
Royal Society Short Visits from the UK New
1 Sep 06
The key objectives of short visits are to initiate
one-to-one collaborations, explore opportunities to build lasting networks
and gain access to complementary equipment, data observations and ideas.
Both UK and overseas host scientists
should have established contact before submitting an application, either
through previous collaboration or correspondence.
More
Information
Royal Society Conference Grants
New
1 Sep 06
The Conference grants scheme supports UK based scientists to either
present their own paper/poster or chair a session at an overseas
conference.
More
Information
EPSRC Postdoctoral Fellowships
26 Sep 06
For talented young researchers, shortly or
immediately after completing a PhD.
More
Information
Royal Society Research
Grants
1 Nov 06
Seed corn funding for new projects. For research
scientists at an early stage of their career or established scientists
wishing to change the direction of their research.
More
Information
Prize and
Award
Opportunities
top
We have acknowledged the need to raise the profile
of the School both nationally and internationally. Nominating
individuals for awards, and working actively with others to ensure that
deserving individuals are nominated is one way of doing
that.
ACM Grace Murray Hopper
Award
31 Oct 06
Awarded to the outstanding young computer
professional of the year, selected on the basis of a single recent major
technical or service contribution. This award is accompanied by a prize of
$15,000. The candidate must have been 35 years of age or less at the time
the qualifying contribution was made. Financial support of the Grace
Murray Hopper Award is provided by Google.
More
Information
Research
Awards
top
None this
week
Staff
News
top
Awards and Promotions
None this week
Academic Arrivals
None this week
Academic Departures
None this week
Research Arrivals
None this week
Research Departures
None this week
Administrative Arrivals
None this week
Administrative Departures
None this week
Sabbatical Leave
Andrei
Voronkov: Microsoft Research, Redmond USA
Aug 05 – Aug
06.
Ian
Horrocks: University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bell Labs, and Stanford University
Feb 06 – Sep
06.
Peter
Aczel: Nijmegen University, and Maths Institute at the
University
of Munich
Jan 06 –
Sep 06.
Alasdair
Rawsthorne: 80% secondment to
Transitive Technologies
Oct 05 – Sep 06.
Alvaro
Fernandes: IBM Almaden Research Centre
US
Jul – Dec 06.
Vacancies
top
Academic Staff
None
Research Staff
None
Academic-Related Staff
Bioinformatics Curator – myGrid
Project
More
information
Administrative Staff
None
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