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Department of CS newsletter
Published: Thursday, 16 June 2022Weekly newsletter for the Department of CS
Department Newsletter - Contents
[ top ]News and announcements
Job vacancies
Ruth Maddocks
Reminder - date for your diary - Summer Bash 13 July
Computer Science Summer Bash - Wednesday 13th July from 4pm
We are having a Summer Bash so we can come together to celebrate. It's been a long, hard time since our last summer do, so we should celebrate together. Please do come and have a beer or a glass of wine and mingle with colleagues and hopefully enjoy the sunshine. We will provide some drinks (both alcoholic and soft) and nibbles and pizza but do bring a bottle too.
This will be Robert's last public appearance as Head of Department – so it’s a special thankyou to Robert for two terms as Head! We have also invited those colleagues who left as lockdown happened as we could not get together - to mark their departure – so we hope they can make it this time
Date: Wednesday 13th July from 4pm (after the Dept Forum)
[ top ]PGR News
Having Problems or Need Clarifications, Direction or Support? PGR to PGR Drop in Sessions (F2F)
For support, advice, clarification, help - anything at all PGR related. We have a PGR to PGR drop-in session running every Monday until the 01st August 2022 from 14:00-15:00 in 2.41 Kilburn Building (next to the 2.33 conference room).
Drop in for a face-to-face meeting about anything PGR you like (nothing too small - nothing too large). If the mentors can't help we know who can.
Simon Harper
Hugo Lefeuvre wins the Manchester Doctoral College (MDC) Excellence Award
Hugo Lefeuvre has won the Manchester Doctoral College (MDC) Excellence Award for Best Outstanding Output in the Faculty of Science and Engineering 2021/22! Very well done to Hugo!
Hugo's paper is entitled “FlexOS: Towards Flexible OS Isolation”. It presents a prototype Operating System (OS) that decouples the isolation/safety strategy from the design of the OS, providing several modular, fne-grained components that can be specialized to various hardware/software protection mechanisms. More info in the paper (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.06566.pdf) and on the website (https://project-flexos.github.io/).
CS PGR Mentors: FREE Pizza and Drinks!!! (17th Jun)
There will be another social PGR event on June 17th. 🍕🥤
We will start with pizza (we have ordered more this time!) at 5 in Atlas 1 and drinks will be served in the PGR common room. As usual, there are non-alcoholic drinks and vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free pizzas available.
This event will have a summer theme and we have bought some summer-themed drinks and activities for all of you to enjoy!
We hope all of you can join us for another fun event 😁😁😁
The mentors
[ top ]Research News
Call for good news
We would love to share your good news and research successes in this departmental newsletter. Contact sarah.chatwin@manchester.ac.uk with details of any new awards or stories of interest.
For papers or outputs with accolades e.g. best paper, highly commended etc., please send a link to the paper and it's accoIade will display these on the noticeboard beside CSOps office.
Sarah Chatwin
[ top ]Research Funding Opportunities
Khalifa University RIC-2D Fund
Please note that Khalifa University has announced a Global Call for projects under the RIC-2D Fund. The call is to identify technologies with a clear line-of-sight to commercialization as well as to build a pipeline of research that will lay a foundation for future 2D material innovations (https://www.ku.ac.ae/ric-2d/call-for-proposal).
The Schools are not allowing submissions to this call since it has a very low overhead rate (20%).
Reminder: UKRI Harmonised IAA Call for Proposals
Deadline: 13th July 2022
The Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) is a combination of grants awarded to the University of Manchester by five research councils. IAA funding supports the research and innovation ecosystem to develop wider impacts from research through fast and flexible funding for early-stage knowledge exchange activities.
This year for the first time, UKRI has harmonised the IAA, with a single point of application across the participating research councils. IAA grants are available to The University of Manchester academics from AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, MRC and STFC. The UoM Knowledge Exchange Partnerships Team is pleased to announce the first Call for Proposals under the following mechanisms:
· Relationship Development Scheme (up to £10k, open call) Fostering new relationships between external partners and academic researchers, creating opportunities for collaboration and exchange of knowledge and skills
· Proof of Concept Scheme (up to £30k) Support for the very early stage of transforming research outputs into commercial and translational opportunities.
· Secondment Scheme (up to £60k) Flexible support for secondments between the University of Manchester and businesses and other organisations.
Do you have a potential project? The Knowledge Exchange Partnerships Team provide active support for the development of IAA submissions. You are strongly advised to contact us for support at least 1 month before the call closing date on the 13th July. Initial contact should be made via kepartnerships@manchester.ac.uk and sarah.chatwin@manchester.ac.uk
Research Staff Excellence Awards Nomination
Extended Deadline: 20 June
https://www.researcherdevelopment.manchester.ac.uk/awards/
To celebrate and recognise the achievement of our research staff, the Research Staff Strategy Group invites nominations for the Research Staff Excellence Awards. Nominations are invited for four categories – research staff of the year, best outstanding output by research staff, best outstanding contribution to research impact by research staff and best outstanding contribution to the research environment by research staff. Individual and team nominations are welcome and research staff are encouraged to share information about the award scheme and consider nominating their peers.FSE nominations strongly encouraged.
ESRC: Equality, diversity and inclusion caucus
Deadline: 8 September 2022
https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/equality-diversity-and-inclusion-caucus/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdeliveryApply for funding to lead on providing high quality research evidence on equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) that informs policy and practice in the research and innovation system. The full economic cost of your project can be up to £4,562,500. ESRC will fund 80% of the full economic cost.
EPSRC: Enabling human centred decision making through data visualisation
Deadline: 02 August 2022
https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/enabling-human-centred-decision-making-through-data-visualisation/
Apply for up to £750k funding for up to 3 years, to enable improved human centred decision making through increased and better interactions with data and visualisations. EPSRC is aiming to fund between four and six awards.
Research must be within 50% of the EPSRC information and communication technologies theme remit.
For the purpose of this opportunity, ‘human centred decision making’ means decision making with a focus on the ‘human’, either with a human making a decision based on the information or visualisation presented, or a machine making a decision taking into consideration the human’s capability to understand and interrogate the decision outcome presented.
We expect this funding opportunity will encourage multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research into data mapping and improving visualisations, as well as research into how people interact with data and visualisations, and how improving visualisations and interactions can improve human centred decision making.
In particular, we welcome research in the following areas (not exhaustive):
- mapping complex data into visualisations
- data evaluation methods
- human decision making in complex or time constrained environments
- new display and interaction technology
- multisensory and inclusive visualisations
- interactions between a human decision maker and data
- user centred research, including how people interact with data
- how improved data visualisation could impact society.
Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary academic collaboration is encouraged, particularly with those who have expertise in:
- human behaviour
- social science
- library and information studies.
Research must be within 50% of the EPSRC information and communications technology (ICT) theme remit.
The following additional grant conditions will also apply:
1. It is expected that you will provide EPSRC with a case study detailing outputs and outcomes of the project between six months and three years.2. It is an expectation that the cohort of principal investigators of funded grants will work together to organise a joint end of grant showcase, detailing the work you have carried out.
This should be aimed at peers and potential businesses, other partners or users of the research. There is an expectation the cohort would meet beforehand to organise the event and invite EPSRC representatives to support the cohort and facilitate co-working.
[ top ]Sustainability and Green Impact News
Sustainable Futures Seminar Series | 7 July |
Final event | Register here
Dr Johan Oldekop, Senior Lecturer in Environment & Development, Global Development Institute
Talk title: Complex policies for complex landscapes: Understanding relative social and environmental outcomes of conservation interventions
Designing and implementing policy interventions that jointly address social and environmental challenges remains an urgent and intractable problem. Our understanding of the relative effects and interactions of different interventions that co-occur in space and time, and how their multiple impacts are influenced by broader socio-economic changes remains limited due four key research limitations. I show how the combination of large-scale social and environmental datasets and techniques that emulate randomised control trials can generate a more nuanced understanding of the relative effects and interactions of multiple conservation and development interventions on social and environmental outcomes.
Dr Rose Pritchard, Presidential Academic Fellow in Social-Environmental Systems, The Global Development Institute
Talk title: Just transitions in a data-fied world: data justice in biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration
Advances in digital technologies have transformed the kinds of data available about rural landscapes and the ways that data can be used in conservation research and practice. While this creates exciting opportunities, often forgotten is that data are never entirely neutral. The kinds of data collected, and the uses to which these data are put, reflect the different sets of values and relationships of power shaping conservation landscapes. This means that data could be used to advance equitable, impactful conservation efforts, or alternatively could serve to reinforce unjust conservation practices harmful to particular peoples, species, or ecosystems.
Marion Morris
