1 million investment in Informatics to enhance Big Data offer to science and business
A £1 million investment into the Department of Informatics at our University will develop capacity to work on Big Data with business and industry. It will see the creation of new research roles and projects with enhanced facilities that will allow the University to remain at the cutting edge of developments and solutions in Big Data in application areas as diverse as Earth Observation, Bio-medicine and Computational Social Science.
As part of this flagship investment the University is establishing two Professorial Chairs in Data-oriented Software Engineering, and Knowledge Discovery and Machine Learning. These Chairs will be supported by the appointment of several lecturers to create capacity to co-operate with industry and satisfy demand for interdisciplinary projects.
Professor Reiko Heckel said: “The two Chairs will bring leadership and focus to two areas of research that are in particular demand for interdisciplinary and industry collaborations. Data-driven applications need sound engineering methods as well as specific techniques for data analytics, which is what these two chairs with their follow-up positions will provide. On the engineering side they will build on significant existing capacity in Informatics. In data analytics we collaborate with data mining experts in the Department of Mathematics and beyond to build up a joint research theme at the college level.
Professor Paul Monks, Head of the College of Science and Engineering, said: “It is recognised that Informatics has a crucial role to play with bridging the data revolution both in science and commerce. We recognise the need to innovate to bring together this world leading knowledge in scientific data, for example, in space and biomedicine, together with modern Informatics techniques to drive new discoveries. This investment fits into the wider strategy of the College and University transforming Informatics to meet societal challenges."