School of CS newsletter

The last meeting of Senate was presented with an interim report by Keith Brown on the FSE review of School structure. The agenda reports are accessible on-line and may be found at http://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/governance/senate/meetings/). It is a progress report and doesn’t say an awful lot. One thing the report does say is that should there be a re-organisation it will be to three or four Schools. The stated reason for this number of schools is that reducing the nine schools to a number near nine would be pointless. I couldn’t possibly comment. The Senate reports are long, but there are some interesting reports on the Higher Education bill, research funding, and activities in teaching an learning, including responses to the NSS.

Robert.

Jim Miles is doing sterling work tackling the School’s history archives. The contents of the School store room on the 2^nd floor of Kilburn are being very slowly sorted and the interesting bits are being relocated. The room is a treasure trove, with mix of assorted junk interspersed with some very interesting historical artefacts and records. One of Jim’s recent discoveries been a 1” thick file of Alan Turing’s correspondence. Speculation is that this was the departmental secretary’s file of the correspondence typed for Turing, as it mostly contains unsigned carbon copies of his letters with a university letter heading. Jim is consulting with the University Historian and the JRUL to determine where the letters should be kept and how they can be made visible and accessible to anyone interested.

I’m pleased to announce that Sarah Clinch has recently been selected as a member of the ACM Future of Computing academy (ACM-FCA). The FCA (https://www.acm.org/fca) is a new initiative created by ACM to support and foster the next generation of computing professionals. Sarah will be attending the inaugural meeting of the FCA and ACM's celebration of 50 years of the ACM Turing Award in San Francisco in June.

A University project/working group has been exploring the feasibility, costs and benefits, opportunities and challenges to establishing a Manchester Environmental Research Institute/Network. We are seeking comments from across the University on the level of interest and any advice for those preparing a roadmap for the creation of such as Institute/ Network. To this end, we would be very grateful if you would take just 5 or 10 minutes to complete the short survey through the following link:

https://apps.mhs.manchester.ac.uk/surveys//TakeSurvey.aspx?SurveyID=ml2M5m4M

If do not want to answer further questions, then please select "NO" for the final question, however if you do wish to provide further input through a further 15 minute survey (and we would grateful for such further responses), then please do selected "YES" and provide us with your further input.

If you have any queries or would like to discuss any aspect of this further, please do not hesitate to contact david.polya@manchester.ac.uk

Wellbeing in the Smart City - Workshop & Seminar

10 May 2017

Time: 10:00 - 16:00

Venue: Atlas 1 & 2, Kilburn Building, Oxford Road, The University of Manchester, M13 9PL

Rethinking the way that technology can be used to improve health and wellbeing is an essential challenge for cities. Manchester is one of the leading cities for both devolution of health & social care and the development of the smart city through the CityVerve 'Internet of Things' demonstrator.

The event will be hosted by The University of Manchester, in association with Arup Design & Consulting, and will focus on three areas - 'Wellbeing in the Smart City'; 'Wellbeing and the Smart Campus', and 'Wellbuildings'.

The aim of the day is to bring together researchers, practitioners, technologists, and industry partners interested in exploring the challenges and opportunities associated with designing, building, and maintaining liveable urban environments in the face of increasing pressures to ensure their environmental sustainability, minimise carbon impact, and deliver efficient modern spaces.

Joining us for this exciting event is Mei Ren & Jamie Anderson the Director and Senior Sustainability Consultant from BuroHappold, Richard Fitton of the University of Salford and many more.

The event will take place in the Atlas Rooms, Kilburn Building, and will incorporate the planned School of Computer Science seminar talk by Dan Hill, Associate Director & Head of Arup Digital Studio (14:00, LT1.5, Kilburn Building).

Book a place here: http://www.informatics.manchester.ac.uk/events/events/wellbeing-in-the-smart-city/

Event: 24 May 17, 1.30-2.30pm (Sackville Street Building, Lecture Theatre C14)

For post-docs and PhD students approaching completion. The Faculty is hosting a visit by the RAEng’s grants team (presentation followed by Q&A), which will include Christina Guindy (Head of Research), Ana Avaliani (Head of Enterprise) and Suzannah Laver (Program Manager, Research). The session will cover the RAEng Research Fellowship scheme (PhD + up to 4 years’ experience), Intelligence Community postdoc scheme and Enterprise Fellowships.
Registration required. (Password: Session4a)

We need to do better in helping our students feel part of the PGR School, to catch problems they may be having early, and to help with personal issues before they become a problem.  One way to help with this is cohorts.

So we'll be moving to 'Advisor Cohorts' in September which means that all Students from the September intake onwards will be randomly grouped into a multi-disciplinary cohort of between 15-20 (two in Semester 1 and one in Semester 2). Our three cohort advisors -  Christos Kotselidis, Giles Reger, and Tingting Mu - will meet with their group regularly and initially every two weeks to make sure things are running smoothly and address any problems.

Briefly, we see advisor duties as:

"The advisor is responsible for providing pastoral support to the student and facilitate peer support within their cohort, providing advice on both accordingly. The advisor should also be a point of contact for the student if there are any difficulties with the supervisory team/student/peer cohort relationship. The advisor will also have some variable academic input to the student's research training, but they do not have responsibility for the student’s research project." 

Once students arrive we're looking to be more active - in supporting both staff and students - so please let us know if you think a student may be having problems or isn't doing as you would expect so we can chase this up.

On a broader note, is there anything particular that you'd like Advisors to cover so we can create a check-list of things to look for or behaviours that may signify something is amiss. Just let us know now or in the future so that we can get mechanisms in place.

Deadline 5pm 22 May 2017

The Josh Award is the UK’s national award in science communication, established to recognise and support up-and-coming talent in science communication. The award provides the opportunity to become the science communicator in residence at the Manchester Science Festival, developing and delivering a new project or event while showcasing best practice in the field of science communication. The winner receives up to £2500 to develop their project or event with Manchester Science Festival and up to £1000 personal expenses budget. For more information and an application form, click here.

Deadline: 06 June 2017

https://royalsociety.org/grants-schemes-awards/grants/research-grants/

Good for purchasing equipment/ consumables. The objective of the scheme is to increase the availability of specialised equipment and essential consumable materials, and to support essential field research. The scheme also provides support for research in the history of science or to assist with publication of scholarly works in the history of science.

Up to £15k (incl. VAT) is available for 12 months for the purchase of specialized equipment directly related to the proposal, essential consumable materials, and travel and subsistence for essential field research. You must:

• hold a PhD or be of equivalent standing in your profession & be a UK resident at the time of application
• be within the first 5 years of the start date of your first permanent or limited-tenured academic position

or

Up to £15k (incl. VAT) is available for research within the History of Science or to assist with publication of scholarly works in the history of science (up to £5,000 incl. VAT).
Non-tenured researchers and retired scientists may apply for research support and publication support grants if the application is in the history of science field and the applicant works in association with an eligible institution.

Internal deadline: 19 May 2017
(External) outline deadline: 08 Jun 2017

www.software.ac.uk/news/epsrc-research-software-engineer-fellowship-invitation-outlines

Up to £4m is available for this call to fund 4 – 8 Fellows, for a period of up to 5 years. Please note only 2 submissions per institution are allowed. Please contact sarah.chatwin@manchester.ac.uk for more information and the internal process (compulsory).

The aim of this call is to provide long-term funding to individuals working as Research Software Engineers who demonstrate exceptional leadership skills and will be able to co-ordinate and promote the role of Research Software Engineers in academia.

The next meeting of the new Research IT Club will take place on the 10th May.

    https://researchitnews.org/2017/04/25/research-it-club-may/

Time/date/location: 3 until 5pm, 10th May, G107, Alan Turing Building

Agenda:

• Angus Hearmon – new Head of Research IT will be introducing himself and reporting back on his first few weeks.
• John Bowes, Division of Musculoskeletal & Dermatological Sciences, Fac BMH, will talk about components of the Research IT ecosystem for computationally-intensive research (CIR), and how two research projects have been made possible using this.
• Mike Elliot, Cyber Security, IT Services, will talk about the introduction of two-factor authentication and use of network security zones here at The University and how researchers can make use of this to increase their research data security.