MANCHESTER

           1824

School of Computer Science

Weekly Newsletter

20 April 2009

Contents

News from HoS

This Week

School Events

External Events

Funding Opps

Prize & Award Opps

Research Awards

Staff News

Vacancies

 

Links

News Submissions

Newsletter Archive

School Strategy

School Intranet

School Seminars

ESNW Seminars

NaCTeM Seminars

 

News from Head of School

Duties Allocations for 2009/10

The first draft of duties allocations for 09/10 is now available at:

http://intranet.cs.man.ac.uk/ACSO/staffLoads/overview.php?year=2009

This is a draft in that: (i) not all staff affected by changes have been consulted; and (ii) some known issues have yet to be resolved. Please feel invited to pass on any comments to Ruth Maddocks (ruth.maddocks@cs.man.ac.uk) by 30th April, who will then ensure that these are discussed at the next meeting of the Duties Allocation Committee. If you are unhappy with some aspect of your allocation, please discuss this with your manager, who may also be minded to send a message to Ruth about your position. If you have been in discussions about your duties and are surprised by the current state of play, please email a query to Ruth, as your allocation could be one of the unresolved issues. If you want to discuss the details of a role, please consult the relevant Head of Function.

Changes in Management Structures

The Duties Allocations for 2009/10 include a number of changes of substance in the management of the school. In essence, we are moving towards a position in which different individuals have responsibility for operational and strategic issues (in a setting in which neither of these aspects are considered to be more important than the other).  In the current duties allocation round there are structural changes in:

  • Research: Howard Barringer will take over the Research Coordinator role from John Gurd, in a team that includes John Keane (with responsibility for External Funding Initiatives) and Carole Goble (with responsibility for Manchester Informatics Liaison).  In essence, changes in funding arrangements towards large strategic initiatives means that the school must be able to focus attention on such opportunities as they arise. In this setting, we anticipate ongoing interactions with Manchester Informatics (MI), which has responsibility for oiling the wheels of cross-disciplinary informatics activities within the university, but also expect that there will be further opportunities either fully within the school or outside the remit of MI for which a timely response may be important. Thus we have a larger research coordination team, reflecting changes in the environment and a perceived shortage of bandwidth for following up initiatives.
  • Teaching: Ian Watson will take on a new role as Director of Teaching. This is seen as a management role, addressing medium or long term issues that have sometimes been difficult to address within the operational teaching structures. In this context, Pete Jinks will have a role working on the details, and the overall staffing levels required in this area will be reviewed in a year.

Computer History

In the context of the duties allocation process, we are looking for someone who would be interested in taking on the curation of the school’s collection of documents and artefacts on the history of computing in Manchester. If you might be interested in this, please let me know.

Research Group Expenditure Against Budget

The following table produced by John Halliwell indicates where groups stand w.r.t. expenditure against the budgets for slush accounts announced in the newsletter of 1st December (negative numbers represent available resource, and positive numbers represent expenditure). In essence, expenditure within most groups (and thus overall) is currently well within budget, which in turn means that groups are encouraged to make relevant purchases before the end of July, to fit within the current financial year. We anticipate that there will also be a budget of £150,000 for allocation to groups during the financial year 2009/2010, but the final school and faculty budgets have yet to be agreed. If you have any questions, for example about over-spending your budget or on other cash flows relating to your group, please contact John (jkh@cs.manchester.ac.uk).

 

Group

Budget

Aug - Oct

Nov - Jan

Feb - Apr

May - Jul

Total Inv.

Planned

Balance

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ex Planned)

 

(Inc Planned)

APT

-32,606.84

4,074.40

6,779.81

8,084.52

0.00

18,938.73

616.31

-13,051.80

BHIG

-12,187.84

10.48

1,931.29

46.77

0.00

1,988.54

2,556.88

-7,642.42

EISS

-8,320.51

2,735.40

413.99

2,090.54

0.00

5,239.93

278.42

-2,802.16

FM

-12,040.04

3,000.22

1,314.61

3,593.72

0.00

7,908.55

908.39

-3,223.10

IMG

-36,155.63

1,767.08

9,447.61

6,590.19

0.00

17,804.88

651.91

-17,698.84

MLO (AI)

-12,127.07

1,925.70

1,132.84

1,773.34

0.00

4,831.88

488.53

-6,806.66

SS

-10,277.70

508.35

4,128.78

7,477.12

0.00

12,114.25

14.89

1,851.44

TM

-12,605.35

371.09

283.32

0.00

0.00

654.41

702.51

-11,248.43

VC

-5,574.73

1,804.22

435.71

849.02

0.00

3,088.95

385.37

-2,100.41

Other

-8,104.29

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

-8,104.29

 

-150,000.00

16,196.94

25,867.96

30,505.22

0.00

72,570.12

6,603.21

-70,826.67

 

Events

RCS seminar                                                                                                   22 Apr 09

Presentation about the latest Intel and AMD update

14:00, Room 4.204 University Place

For further information please contact Laura Hill

Microelectronics and Nanostructures Group seminar                         23 Apr 09

Growth of Nitride, Dilute Nitride and Dilute Magnetic Semiconductors by

Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) and Plasma-assisted MBE

Prof Tom Foxon, University of Nottingham

14:00, Room H11, Renold Building