Department of CS newsletter

Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw (DKO) Fellowships

The advertisement for the upcoming DKO Fellowships has just been posted (https://www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetail?JobId=27481) with a deadline of January 29th. The most CS-relevant areas that these fellowships will be appointed to are:

· Data Science; Machine Learning and Simulation; Robotics & AI

· Quantum; Nano-engineering; Spintronics & electronics; Low energy computing

Additionally, outstanding candidates in science and engineering who are outside of these areas will also be considered and are encouraged to apply. Please do share this opportunity as widely as possible.

A message from Andrea Schalk as our incoming DHoE

“As the incoming DHoE I would like to make some remarks: Looking back over our teaching activities over the last few years, we've been addressing several overlapping issues: teaching online, hybrid teaching, increased student numbers, Faculty and PS staff reorganization, that I know have left everybody exhausted while also generating plenty of frustration. However, we shouldn't forget that we have managed to cope with all these issues, while, on the whole, protecting our students from most of the effects, and ensuring continued student satisfaction. This is something we should all be proud of, and I think this is sometimes forgotten. This success is in no small part due to my predecessor, Sean, who often had to serve as the messenger for unwelcome news while putting a huge effort into ensuring that we remained functioning throughout all this to a standard that has certainly exceeded my expectations. Thank you, Sean!

I'm sure that I too will bear unwelcome news in the future. But let's look at my vision for the role: To begin with, I want us to get back to talking about teaching, exchanging ideas, identifying, promoting and sharing good practice, reviewing our teaching (we moved to blended learning under time pressure and we haven't really looked at it since) and providing feedback to each other. However, to explore what works and why, we need feedback from our students, and the traditional measures for obtaining that are not working very well. Arguably they are not asking the right questions or digging into the reasons for students' answers. As such, longer term, I would like us to have a student presence in our conversations about teaching and learning. If you have any ideas that allow us to move forward with these themes, I would very much like to hear from you. In January I plan to run some sessions where we think about these issues, and if you are interested in joining then please let me know which topic interests you. There are no expectations that those joining commit to anything other than contributing their ideas, although I hope that some of you will be interested in joining my efforts.”

Happy Christmas/Festivus/Holidays

Finally, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a relaxing and peaceful festive season. I hope to see many of you at our departmental Christmas shindig on the afternoon of December 20th.

Andrew

Process for Requests for Purchasing of Software

There is a requirement to follow Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for all requests to purchase software. The purpose of this Procedure is to provide a process to ensure that the full implications of any acquisition or development of IT systems, software and/or services are considered and that all relevant parties are consulted and consent to such commissioning before it takes place.: Acquisition, development and maintenance of IT systems and/or services

1. Send request to CSOps - who will liaise with ITS who will then will discuss the requirements with the requestor to see if there is a university service that can meet their needs. ITS will also go through an ITS checklist with the requestor, if they need to go ahead with a third party service (and this can often be the case), to ensure they've thought about support and maintenance etc.

1. The requestor also is required to submit an IGRR request and this is invariably needed as part of the SOP as well.

The IGRR process | Information Governance Office | StaffNet | The University of Manchester

1. Once the requestor has an approved IGRR send this to CSOps who will liaise with ITS.  Once the checklist and the approvals are complete then ITS can give CSOps IT approval.

NOTE:  This process must be completed prior to a subscription being taken out - if the approval is not given then you will not be able to claim for the expenditure

Deadline for showing interest: TODAY 13-Dec-23

RLP are working on developing a secure research environment for the University. To do this we need to hear from researchers and research colleagues about the challenges and issues they face.

In January, The Research Lifecycle Programme will be hosting a series of town hall-style meetings to gather a more complete picture of the challenges the research community face in light of the recent cyber incident.

This is to help inform their work to develop a world-leading Secure Research Environment, one that restores confidence in working with UoM for our funders and collaborators. 

Key questions for these sessions will include: 

• How do we do our research? 
• Where do we store our data?  
• How do we analyse the data?  
• Is the equipment that we use secure?

 
In answering these questions, they will begin to see how the University can develop a Secure Research Environment, meeting the needs of all faculties, schools and researchers.  

For this work to be successful, and to ensure these questions are addressed as comprehensively as possible, RLP will need input from as many in the research community as possible. RLP are keen to hear from researchers, PGRs and PDRAs, PS colleagues who support research, and other colleagues and job roles that they haven’t identified, who can provide useful insight to this process. They would be delighted to hear suggestions of attendees, or job roles within the school, who you would like to see attend and contribute. 

They are looking for help and advice on who to invite to town hall-style meetings from The School of Engineering.

Please reply to niki.harratt@manchester.ac.uk with your suggestions and recommendations by Wednesday 13 December so that he can start scheduling meetings and inviting you and your colleagues to them.

The RLP team are looking forward to hearing from you.
 

The UK’s association to Horizon Europe and Copernicus was officially sealed on 4^th December. The association agreement was adopted in the form of a protocol to the Trade and Cooperation Agreement by the EU-UK Specialised Committee on Participation in Union Programmes.

After the announcement on 7 September 2023, UK organisations will be able to participate in Horizon Europe calls for proposals on the same terms as institutions from other Associated Countries, including leading consortia and receiving EU funding, from the 2024 Work Programme and onwards. This includes any 2024 calls opening this year.

Participation in Copernicus, the EU Earth Observation programme, will enable the UK’s access to a state-of-the-art capacity to monitor the Earth and to its services, as well as provide the UK research community with access to unique data, which is often required on Horizon Europe projects.

The UK Government has published a helpful explainer document, which includes clarifications on many issues related to the UK association to both programmes.

Next steps

Department for Science, Innovation and Technology will shortly launch a communications campaign to maximise participation in Horizon Europe and Copernicus from researchers, academics and businesses of all sizes in the UK. This PR push will shine a light on the real-world examples of the benefits Horizon and Copernicus participation can deliver for academics, researchers and businesses, right across the UK – particularly small and medium-sized businesses involved in R&D, which might not have previously considered applying.

Alongside this, in a partnership with the British Academy and other key backers, support will be made available to selected UK researchers applying for Horizon for the first time, through ‘pump priming’ funding, with up to £10,000 available per application. The funding will be available to support those researchers who have not previously had experience, including next generation researchers. The fund will be targeted to ensure it maximises the UK’s involvement in Horizon.

Deadline: tbc

www.ukri.org/opportunity/future-leaders-fellowships-round-9/

FLF Round 9 pre-announcement information is available. The actual call is likely to open in Feb 2024 and we are expecting to be able to submit 9 or 10 applications from UoM. As with previous rounds, there will be an internal sift - information to come.

If you would like information on the last internal sift for reference, then please contact your RS contact (or sarah.chatwin@manchester.ac.uk or klaudia.januszewska@manchester.ac.uk)