Transcript Document

Informatics
School Overview
Key Facts
UK Research Assessment Exercise:
• 69% more world leading research than nearest competitor
• 44% more world leading + internationally excellent
• 10% of all UK world leading research
Staff and students:
90 Academic staff
150 Postdoc researchers
280 PhD students
215 Masters level students
450 Undergraduates (approx. 200 in 1st year)
Teaching awards in 2010:
• Voted Best School in EUSA poll of over 3000 students)
• Top in Guardian League table for teaching excellence
Research spend ≈ £10M
Non-research spend ≈ £9M
Foundations for a new science
The science of information – how natural and artificial
systems process, store and communicate information
A fundamental science underpinning all areas of life Academic, Industrial and Social.
Encompasses sub-disciplines such as Computer
Science, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science
This broad view of informatics is necessary because:
Big technological problems are multi-disciplinary
Big societal problems demand integrative science
Formation of the School
Departments
School
ICSA
Computer systems
LFCS
LFCS
Theory of computation
ANC
Brain and learning
ICCS HCR
C
IPAB
Language and
cognition
Robotics and vision
CISA AIAI
Knowledge and agents
Cognitive
Science
HCR
C
Research
Computer
Science
Artificial
Intelligence
Admin
AIAI
ITO
Grad. School
Institute Statistics
Institute
Research Academic
Spend £K staff
Research PhD
staff
students
LFCS
1600
24
37
38
ICCS
2400
18
48
74
CISA
2000
8
38
41
ICSA
2000
5
27
38
IPAB
560
5
19
31
ANC
960
11
16
59
Interdisciplinary Centres
Linguistics
Centre for Speech
Technology Research
Law
Digital Curation
Centre
Edinburgh Parallel
Computing Centre
Medicine
Centre for Neuroscience
Research
Informatics
Centre for Systems
Biology at Edinburgh
Biology
Physics
National e-Science
Centre
Institute for System
Level Integration
Centre for Numerical Algorithms
and Intelligent Software
Maths
Engineering
Teaching
1 year MSc
4th year modules
Honours thesis
3rd year modules
Informatics 2
Maths 2
Additional
Informatics 1
Maths 1
Additional
4 year Honours UG
Strategic issues:
•Continuing to raise quality (admitted and graduated)
•Engagement with other disciplines in teaching
•Change in demands on course structure
•Change in expectations of those being educated
•Developing the “computational thinking” ethos
Academic Management
Top-level management is via a board of directors:
• Directors of research oversee our major research initiatives.
• Director of computing provides academic oversight of computing support.
• Director of staff recruitment & development oversees our HR activities.
• Director of graduate school oversees our graduate school activities.
• Director of commercialisation coordinates our commercial activities.
• Director of teaching develops teaching strategy and oversees the ITO academic team
• Director of knowledge management coordinates information management
Head of School
Directors
Research
Computing
HR
Grad School
PG
selectors
Commercialisation
Deputy Teaching
UG
selectors
Course
organisers
Teaching
Senior DoS
Directors
of studies
KM & Outreach
Curriculum/QA
Administrative/Computing Management
Top-level management responsible for support groups divided by function.
Front-offices service provided by:
• Research front-offices providing day-to-day support on floors of the Forum.
• IGS office for PG research students
• ITO office for taught course students
Back-office research, finance and HR services brought together.
Portfolio teams within research grouping maintain familiarity with subgroups of researchers (e.g. institutes).
Graduate School and ITO brought together.
Commercialisation and outreach support combined.
Head of School
Chief Administrator
Head of Computing
Computing
support
Deputy Chief Administrator
(research)
Research and finance
Portfolio teams
Institute
front-offices
School
office
HR
Deputy Chief Administrator
(teaching)
Commercialisation
and Outreach
Commercialisation
and outreach
Head of ITO
IGS
ITO
Top-Level Committee Structure
Each academic director has a counterpart in the support organisation.
This is the top-level interface between academic and support groups.
A top-level support director runs the administration of each of the main School committees.
Planning & Resources
Head of School
Chief Administrator
Academic/Commercial Directors
Computing
Research
HR
Grad School
Teaching
Commercialisation
KM
Administrative/Computing Directors
Computing
Deputy Chief Administrator
(reasearch)
Deputy Chief Administrator
(teaching)
Computing
committee
Institute
committees
Teaching
committee
Grad School
committee
Board of
Studies
Commercialisation
& Outreach
Outreach
committee
Staff Perspective
Research
portfolio team
research project support
financial aspects of research
School
office
issues for Head of School
issues for Chief Administrator
HR
development support
work permits etc.
Commercialisation
and outreach
research student admin
research student recruitment
Member
of staff
commercial contracts
public engagement
course admin issues
DoS support
computing issues
computing advice
day-to-day support
accommodation
Institute
front-office
IGS
Computing
ITO
Recruitment and Promotion
Recruitment Process:
• The School maintains a list of strategic areas for recruitment.
Currently these are: cognitive science; computer networks;
computer vision; data intensive research; large scale
knowledge systems; operating systems; software engineering
• Strategic areas are aligned to the opportunity when funding
becomes available
• All academic posts are advertised in open competition
Promotion and career development:
• Annual appraisal for all staff
• For academic staff, an issue is progression to Professor
• For research staff, an issue is competing for academic posts
• Startup company route is becoming much more common
Workload
Typical workload:
•1.5 lecture courses (30 lectures) per year
•2 tutorial groups (20 tutorials) per year
•3 PhD students in steady state (1 new student per year)
•3 MSc student projects
•1 Honours UG project
•1 significant research grant
Allocating duties:
•Aim for typical workload for everyone
•Adjust individual components depending on specific case
•Effort not quantified but allocation to duties is public
•Wide variation in specific cases
Broader Initiatives, Now Mature
Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance:
• A Scottish research pooling initiative
• Involves Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews as core with
(almost) all Scottish universities as partners
• Funded 10 new academic staff in Informatics
• Funds 20 PhD students across SICSA (competition)
ProspeKT and Informatics Ventures:
• Funds entrepreneurial training and events
• Funds Business Development executives who work with
institutes
• Brings in advisors and mentors from MIT/Stanford, etc.
Examples of New Initiatives
Pump priming activities:
• iDEAlab
• College workshops
Strategic activities:
• FET-Flagships
• CS Doctoral Training Centre
Outreach activities:
• Design-Informatics
• e-Research
Funding Climate
Change in UK Funding Landscape
Increase in government research funding to UK computing
research departments over previous 10 years (values in £M)
RAE 2001
RAE 2008
UK RCs
103
249
EU
57
106
Industry
38
47
Sharp decrease in UK research council funding expected
post-2010. Effects at EPSRC probably will be:
• Reduction in “responsive mode” research funding
• Focus on thematic research
• Clawback of some existing funding
UK government approach to funding is likely to become
“absorptive” and for clear economic gain.
Strong possibility that cap on teaching fees charged for UK
undergraduates may be raised/abolished.
Sources of Research Funding
Application Volume v Success Rate
Staff Profile
Age distribution of teaching staff at September 2009
18
16
14
Professor
Number of staff
12
Reader
10
Senior
lecturer
Lecturer
8
6
4
2
0
< 35
35-39
40-44
45-49
Age classes
50-54
55-59
60+
Academic Strategy
Help UK funders to support theory
Defend the core
Support theory integrators inside School
Develop shared strategies with funders
Target timely areas
Develop shared themes with other Schools
Encourage more “systems”
Influence large UK/EU systems challenges
Encourage systems designers in School
Develop Design-Informatics Centre
Produce T-shaped students
Extend existing entrepeneurial initiative
Increase social engagement
Engage more strongly with social challenges
Make our teaching more outward facing
Structural/Administrative Issues
• Make research administration run more effectively by consolidating
Informatics Research Organisation.
• Strengthen our policy of recruiting and retaining only the most
talented staff in strategic areas (especially in emerging areas) by
planning strategic appointments to a 3-year horizon, focusing on
“new blood” junior appointments.
• Develop support for long term career development of research
funded staff, through better mentoring and review.
• Ensure that institutes remain lightweight administratively, and find
ways to make the institute structure more fluid without breaking the
social groupings.