School of CS newsletter

The School hosted two undergraduate Open Days on Saturday 3rd and 10th October, and welcomed more than 400 visitors over the two days to a stand, a talk, and a Tech Fair with our students showing what they can do. Both events were a great success, thanks to the hard work of the External Affairs team and the academic staff who took part, and to the 25 student ambassadors and alumni who gave up their Saturdays to come and share their enthusiasm for the School with potential undergraduates and their families. A big thank you on behalf of the School to all who were involved, including: Jez Lloyd, Alyson Owens, Shazia Dar, Sophia Lewis Martyr, Ellie Foster, Cassie Barlow, Gavin Brown, Duncan Hull, Caroline Jay, Steve Pettifer, Uli Sattler, Markel Vigo, and Alan Davies.

If you are funded by the BBSRC, they would be grateful if you could complete a short survey. The results will be used to understand career progression.

The survey is open until November 9th:

https://app.keysurvey.co.uk/f/981424/5a41/

Event: 15 Oct 2015, MIB Lecture Theatre 10:00 – 12:00.

The University is hosting a Horizon 2020 information session focussing on the 2016/2017 Work Programme for Societal Challenge 2 - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy with Ian Holmes the UK National Contact Point .

If you would like to attend this event please email Claire.Faichnie@manchester.ac.uk please also state if you would like a one to one discussion with Ian after he presentation.

 

The Societal Challenge 2 DRAFT Work Programme for 2016/2017 is attached.

 

PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS EMAIL AND ENCOURAGE YOUR ACADEMIC STAFF TO LOOK AT THE BRIEF – THIS AREA IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR MANY AT THE UNIVERSITY.

 

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Societal Challenge 2 in brief.

This Work Programme will leverage research and innovation to address major societal challenges:

• Ensuring food and nutritional security, together with resource efficiency, and facing climate change.
• Sustainably exploiting the potential of the oceans, which cover 70% of the earth’s surface and host 50% of known species.
• Promoting dynamic territorial development, through the mobilisation of rural and coastal economies.
• Boosting investment, employment and economic growth in the European Union.

 

This Work Programme will achieve its objectives through four calls:

• Sustainable Food Security – Resilient and resource-efficient value chains: this call addresses the issues of resilience and efficiency in the food value chain. It will support research and innovation all along the food chain, from primary production, food processing to healthy and safe foods and diets.
• Blue Growth – Demonstrating an ocean of opportunities: this call will test, demonstrate, scale-up and bring to the market innovative marine and maritime technologies, products and services, as well as exploring the interactions between the oceans and human health, and strengthening the European capability to observe and map oceans and seas basins and improving the professional skills and competences for those working and being trained to work within the blue economy.
• Rural Renaissance – Fostering innovation and business opportunities: this call will focus on innovation as driver for rural development, with a particular emphasis on developing framework conditions for innovation and new business models adapted to the rural context, and support for skills development in rural communities.
• Bio-based innovation for sustainable goods and services – Supporting the development of a European Bioeconomy: this call will help to securing sustainable biomass supply for bio-based goods and services and will support the future development of bio-based markets, for example by promoting stakeholder engagement

In early November, we'll also be launching a new funding scheme that will provide significant investment for multidisciplinary collaboration in population research. If you'd like to be one of the first to hear more about the Catalyst Award - let us know.

Deadline: 19 Oct 2015

There are a number of potential visits available to the following places (depending on your area of interest):

• SALVADOR
• MINAS GERAIS (incl. Biotechnology)
• PORTO ALEGRE (RIO GRANDE DO SOL) (incl. Health Sciences; Computer Sciences)
• RECIFE (incl. Biotechnology; Computer Science (Software); Engineering (High performance computing and reservoir)

contact sarah.chatwin@manchester.ac.uk for full information.