School of CS newsletter

Please be advised of the following Kilburn room changes:

LF15 will change from a teaching room to a new "PGR Home" space, and will be refurbished. This will serve as the initial home for newly-arrived PGR students, and to be a long-term base for all PGR students, providing PCs, hot-desking, and social space, to help build a PGR student community. The loss of a teaching room will be mitigated in part by finer-grained timetabling of 2.15 and 2.19.

LF17 (the MacLab) will become an overspill UG lab with 15 PCs to help with the larger-than-usual UG second year in AY17.

G102  (ground floor) will be replaced by a new refurbished room G41 (most recently home to the IT Services Helpdesk, and slightly larger than G102) furnished Collab-style for UG/PGT teaching. G102 will continue to be used as it is now, until G41 becomes available (probably post-Jan 2018). G102 will then become more IT Services space.

G23 (ground floor) is being repainted and will have 15 extra PCs.

LF8 (the John Malkovitch suite, opposite Byte Cafe, currently the CDT room) will become a general bookable meeting room.

LF7 will be used by the Web Ergonomics Lab.

LF31 will have a new carpet, and the PC desks will be rewired.

Tootill 0 has new desks, Tootill 1 will have 3 new PCs, and both rooms will have new arms for the monitors.

Room 1.8 (the Quiet Lab) will have 11 new PCs.

The Computing At School team has won a university Social Responsibility award. At the “Making a Difference” ceremony on Wednesday 10th May, the award was presented to Dave Ames, Carol Murray and Sarah Zaman for their outstanding contribution to "Widening Participation”. This is great recognition for a year of intense activity in schools across the Northwest of England, supporting teachers and involving schoolchildren in computing, and also working at the national level to determine how best to provide computing support for schools nationwide. Congratulations to the CAS team, and thanks from the School for this splendid work promoting Computer Science education in Primary and Secondary schools.

Also, the #BritainBreathing team were Highly Commended for their "Outstanding Public Engagement" Initiative.  The team is Sheena Cruickshank, Andy Brass, Jennie Evans, Lamiece Hassan, Hannah Hope, Caroline Jay, Jon Kudlick, Natasha Little, Indira McClean, Markel Vigo (Infection, Immunity & Respiratory Medicine, FBMH and School of Computer Sciences, FSE).  The team, together with colleagues from the British Society for Immunology and the Royal Society of Biology, have created an exciting new citizen science project that aims to engage the UK public to act as 'citizen sensors': participants use a purpose built app to track their symptoms and activities which helps scientists discover more about seasonal allergies such as hay fever or asthma and, at the same time, helps participants to monitor and learn more about their symptoms.

Congratulations to all those involved. 

From the School of Environment, Education and Development:

We welcome applications for the PGCERT in Higher Education for 2017/18

The PG Cert in Higher Education is aimed at academic staff and senior PSS colleagues at the University of Manchester. Its aim is to help you think more critically about your contribution to the University, as well as to develop a better understanding of the sector-wide changes in the Higher Education landscape. The programme is coordinated through Manchester Institute of Education and delivered by colleagues from around the University.

The programme is free to University of Manchester staff. Full details and an online application form are available on the PgCert HE website.

The deadline for applications is 30th June 2017. We will let applicants know if they’ve been successful in July.

• Prof Asen Asenov (Glasgow University)
• Matt Horsnell (ARM)
• Jonny Wray (e-Therapeutics)

Our School’s Graduation event is scheduled for 12:15 hrs on Friday 14th July 2017. The University is asking members of staff who wish to take part in the Procession to register on-line:

http://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/news/display/?id=18365 . Please note that the registration deadline is 23rd June 2017.

Gill Lester

In a meeting between the University and the RCUK, courtesy of Ann Webb,  a new EoI/Call round for 18 new CDTs in autumn 17/spring 18 respectively, places to start autumn 19 was discussed.

As a School, we are conducting both a top-down and bottom-up appraisal of the kind of CDTs we may want to apply for. Our new CDT pathway for the updated PhD (more at a later date) will have all of the 'good stuff' the EPSRC likes built in. What we need from you are any CDT themes which you may like to see adopted.

Send me a page or so outlining:

1. Title;
2. Overview;
3. Outline the  'Added Value' over Standard PhDs;
4. Other Schools / Faculties involved in co-Creation;
5. Industrial Partners;
6. Evidence a 'National Need';
7. Discuss how this will 'Meeting EPSRC Strategic Objectives';
8. Evidence how 'Students will Becoming Agents of Change';
9. How might this CDT 'Enhanced Student Expertise' (not so critical as we already have this covered); and
10. Describe your plan for 'CDT Sustainability'.

Everything in 'quotes' was used by the EPSRC to evaluate the effectiveness of the last set of CDTs so is here as a good indicator as to how they may evaluate new proposals.

We're am pleased to announce that the University have been awarded 9 additional PhD studentships as part MRC’s allocation from the NPIF. MRC have stipulated that we must recruit to projects within two of the four MRC-relevant areas of the Industrial Strategy, namely Digital Technologies and Informatics for Health and Precision Medicine and Diagnostics (see attached document for more details).

These studentships must commence in October 2017, so we will have to move quickly in order to secure students in a timely manner.  The process will be overseen by the MRC DTP Management Board and will follow our standard project review and interview procedures; however, studentships will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis providing the nominated students meet the quality threshold. If necessary, we will prioritise projects with a confirmed industry partner.

If you have a new project or if you have a project with a student already allocation (funded or not) please submit a case, as we can transfer the funding this replaces to a different student who is waiting in the queue.

Therefore, if your project fits at least one of the themes outlined above, please e-mail request the forms from PGR CompSci at Manchester and return to  Michelle Ringwood (michelle.l.ringwood@manchester.ac.uk) and Jessica Bowler (jessica.bowler@manchester.ac.uk) no later than 10am, Monday 22 May 2017.  Please indicate in your email whether you have a student in mind (include their name) or if you would wish to advertise the project. We will then review projects and contact you about the next steps in relation to student interview/selection and advertising.  Please note that these studentships won’t be badged against the NPIF in any advertising material due to restrictions relating to the forthcoming general election.

Eligibility check deadline: 26 June 2017
Deadline for full applications: 21 August 2017

The Academy of Medical Sciences has launched this year's Springboard Scheme to provide funding for biomedical researchers in their first independent post. For more information please go to the Springboard website: http://www.acmedsci.ac.uk/grants-and-schemes/grant-schemes/springboard/

We would like to encourage eligible individuals to apply.

Eligible individuals will:

• Hold a research-active academic post.

• Be within 3 years of appointment to an independent post.

• Have sufficient time remaining in their contract to complete the 2 year project.

  They must NOT:

• Hold a clinical contract.

• Be in receipt of funding as PI or CoI exceeding £75,000 p.a. (excluding personal salary).

The University of Manchester will select three individuals of the highest calibre, who will be invited by the Academy of Medical Sciences to put in full applications. Interested individuals should contact Connie Funke-Dooley (Constanze.Funke-Dooley@manchester.ac.uk) for more details on the scheme and internal deadlines.

On Monday 15th May Dr Daniel Dresner from the School of Computer Science spoke to the BBC Radio 5 Live’s Stephen Nolan in a wide-ranging interview on the cyberattack and related cyber security issues. You can listen to the full interview on BBC Radio iPlayer.

Danny also appeared on the BBC News Channel to discuss the issue on 16th May.

HTCondor, or just Condor for short, is the UoM High Throughput Computing pool available to all staff and research students. Chris Paul (chris.paul@manchester.ac.uk) can set you up an a/c, often just by return email. Just recently the pool has clocked over 3,333 compute-years of research results produced. There is no contributory charge for using this resource. The odd taught student project may also be allowed access by special arrangement. Contact me if you are interested.