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SICSA and EIT Digital Boost Scottish European Student Exchange Programme

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SICSA and EIT Digital partner to deliver Scottish Funding Council Saltire Scheme

Scotland & Brussels, March 2nd, 2022:

The Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA) have partnered with EIT Digital to deliver on a £75k SFC investment in renewing and strengthening Scottish – European research collaborations.

The “Saltire Emerging Researcher Scheme” is part of a £6.75m Programme funded by the Scottish Government to support international and EU activity and collaboration including boosting support for international research collaboration and talent attraction, increase scholarship offering to include EU students and support the effective use of alumni globally.

SICSA, in partnership with EIT Digital, has been awarded funding within the Saltire Scheme to reinforce and build new research partnerships while developing individual researchers’ networks with European partners across the Computer Science discipline. The scheme will fully fund incoming and outgoing exchanges of up to six months to both enhance the training experience for PhD Students and support Early Career Researchers in developing their networks and collaborations across Scotland and Europe.  The partnership leverages the reach of EIT Digital’s extensive network across Europe in research intensive institutions and SICSA’s strong network of partnerships across Scottish Computing Science.

Professor Stuart Anderson, Director of SICSA said “Informatics and Computer Science researchers in SICSA do have strong and vibrant links with researchers across Europe.  However, BREXIT has had a severe cooling effect on funding channels because of complex and protracted negotiations on funding.  The Saltire awards give our PhD students and Early Career Researchers an immediate boost in reinforcing existing and building new collaborations.  These will form the foundations of new long-term collaborative research across the EU.”

Jamie Hepburn, Minister for Higher and Further Education said: “I am delighted to see funding under the Saltire Emerging Research Scheme has enabled this partnership between SICSA and EIT Digital. This partnership has increased the reach and opportunities for exchange and collaboration for both Scottish and European researchers, to help them deliver a better digital future.”

Morgan Gillis, EIT Digital’s UK director, commented that: “EIT Digital is very pleased with the take-up of its programs in Scotland and delighted to be deeply involved in the international development of Scotland’s digital economy across a range of sectors. We much appreciate our close collaboration with Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Funding Council as strategic partners in making this success possible.”

Stuart Fancey, Director of Research and Innovation at the Scottish Funding Council, said: “Forging strong international links is a crucial part of maintaining and enhancing Scotland’s world-class reputation for research and innovation. The Saltire Emerging Researcher Scheme is therefore an incredibly important investment in the future. The partnership between SICSA and EIT Digital demonstrates the energy and commitment that will make the scheme a success for everyone involved. I am sure all those taking part in the SICSA/EIT Digital exchanges will benefit considerably from the experience.”    

EIT Digital in Scotland is funded by our partners Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Funding Council. We are also supported by Highlands & Islands Enterprise, FinTech Scotland, Edinburgh Innovations and University of Edinburgh.

Press notes

EIT Digital’s Satellite Office, opened in Edinburgh in April 2019 by Minister for Trade, Investment and Innovation Ivan McKee, has maintained strong progress within its remit to deliver impact to Scotland’s national digital economy with €6m of new investment to commercialise innovative new digital  products and the launch of three Scottish doctoral programs focussed on Fintech, Privacy and 5G/Future Wireless Communication – all domains of national strategic importance.

SICSA is a Research Pool, funded by the Scottish Funding Council and 14 partner Universities to promote collaboration in research, teaching and knowledge exchange across its partner Universities.  It is part of Research and Innovation Scotland that brings together all of the Scottish Research Pools and Innovation Centres to cooperate on multi-disciplinary challenges.

Contact details for:

EIT Digital: martin.beaton@eitdigital.eu
https://www.eitdigital.eu/

SICSA: Tiffany.Babey@glasgow.ac.uk
https://www.sicsa.ac.uk/

Recruiting a new Data Science Research Theme Co-Lead

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SICSA Data Science Research Theme…. recruiting a new theme co-leader

 Applications are invited for any suitable member of academic staff within a SICSA Institution to co-lead the SICSA Data Science Research Theme.

 The role of the SICSA Theme Leaders is to coordinate activities within each of the defined SICSA themes and further develop coherent communities in these areas.

Research Theme leaders are taking on increasingly public facing roles on behalf of SICSA and are called upon to help shape and direct the theme but also to provide a face and national representation for their theme area.

Elements of Research Theme activities potentially have some emphasis on challenge-based research such as: Future Health and Wellbeing, Tackling the Climate emergency and the just transition to net zero, Developing the Blue Economy, Enhancing Cultural wellbeing and the creative economy, Transition to a Sustainable economy.   This provides an exciting opportunity for the new Research Theme Co-Lead to work alongside other disciplines and SICSA research themes to organise some cross-theme/discipline activities whilst maintaining core discipline activities

For more information on the role please refer to the Data Science Co-Theme Leader Job Descriptor.  If you would like to speak to the current Theme Leaders about the role please get in touch with Professor Mike Chantler (M.J.Chantler@hw.ac.uk) and/or Dr Yashar Moshfeghi yashar.moshfeghi@strath.ac.uk

More information on the role can be found on the role descriptor.

To apply, please complete the application form and send it to Aileen.Orr@glasgow.ac.uk by Friday 17th December 2021.

We are now recruiting for a new SICSA Director of Education

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SICSA is now recruiting a new Director of Education

SICSA Education has a focus on enhancing collaboration across the core activities of Undergraduate and Postgraduate education provision in Scotland. The group represents common interests to government; employers; professional and practitioner organisations; and the wider education sectors. These include resourcing for University Computing programmes, secondary school qualifications, the transition from school to University, and graduate skills.

This role provides an excellent opportunity for the right candidate to not only shape the future direction of SICSA Education, but also the direction of the presently changing landscape in computing education as we emerge from the covid-19 pandemic.

It is expected that the candidate is seconded to this role for 0.2FTE (one day a week).

If you would like to speak informally about the role, please contact our current Director of Education, Dr Mark Zarb (m.zarb@rgu.ac.uk )

More information on the role can be found on the role descriptor

To apply, please complete the application form and send it to Aileen.Orr@glasgow.ac.uk by Friday 17th December 2021.

SICSA welcomes Dr Andrei Perovski as its new SGA Director!

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We are delighted to let you know that we have appointed our new SICSA Graduate Academy (SGA) Director.  Dr Andrei Perovski, Robert Gordon University commenced the role as SGA Director of 1 August 2021 taking over from Dr Susmit Sarkar.

Andrei is a Reader in Computation Systems and holds the role of Research Student Coordinator at Robert Gordon. He has been active in SICSA in previous years and will continue the existing work that the Graduate Academy has been doing.  As well as overseeing the SGA funding programmes, his focus will be to promote industry placements and enhance our links with industry, continue to develop research ethos and culture across the pool and encourage active participation through organising PhD activities.

When informed of the decision to appoint him to the role, Andrei said “I am delighted and honoured to get appointed to the SICSA GA Director post during the challenging, but exciting, times of change in post-graduate research and education caused by the pandemic and gradual recovery from it. Together with other SICSA Directors and members of staff, I will endeavour to explore new and to enhance existing opportunities to benefit the community of post-graduate researchers in Scotland and beyond”

Andrei is joining SICSA at an exciting time of Research Pooling and we are looking forward to working with him in shaping the future of the SICSA Research Pool.

The SICSA Directors would like to pass on a huge thank you to Dr Susmit Sarkar for his support and input to SICSA in the last few years.

New Funding Call for PhD students to attend conferences

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With most national and international conferences currently being held on-line due to the pandemic, SICSA is taking the opportunity to open a new funding call which will allow PhD students, currently studying in a SICSA institution, to apply for the cost of the registration fees for a virtual conference.

If there is a specific Conference you are interested in attending and, it is in line with your research you can apply for funding for the registration fees.  There is no deadline for proposals to be submitted.

For more information and details of how to apply, please see the SICSA Funding Page

We are recruiting for the Director of the SICSA Graduate Academy

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We are pleased to announce that we are now recruiting for a new Director of the SICSA Graduate Academy.  Applications are welcome from any suitable member of academic staff working at a SICSA member institution.

The SICSA Graduate Academy (SGA) is an international graduate school in Informatics and Computer Science. All Informatics and Computer Science PhD students who are registered with a Scottish University are members of the Graduate Academy and can participate in SICSA activities without charge. The SGA is coordinated by the Graduate Academy Director, with support from the SICSA Executive.

Research pooling across Scotland is entering an exciting phase. Following the review of pooling, the SFC are considering a number of recommendations which present opportunities for someone interested this role. You can help shape the foundations for the future of SICSA as we develop into this new era of Scottish research pooling. Anyone interested in taking on this role should be willing to work with others in the directorate on developing a new direction for SICSA in light of a changing funding landscape.

If you would like to speak informally about the role, please contact the SICSA Director, Professor Stuart Anderson (S.Anderson@ed.ac.uk)

Director of the SICSA Graduate Academy Job Description
Director of the SICSA Graduate Academy Application Form

Please submit our application, along with a current (summarised) CV to Aileen.Orr@glasgow.ac.uk no later than 27th June 2021.

SICSA and ScotCHEM are coming together for a Speed Networking Fortnight

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SICSA and ScotChem are coordinating a fortnight of short remote one-to-one calls between researchers to stimulate inter-disciplinary exchanges of research ideas and agendas.  Working across disciplines is notoriously difficult in ordinary circumstances, but the restrictions caused by the current pandemic have even further curtailed opportunities for chance encounters at conferences, or meetings that lead to fruitful collaborations. To address this, the aim of the Speed Networking Fortnight is to put researchers in touch with each other across disciplines to foster understanding of existing disciplinary research challenges and provide opportunities.

To minimise the impact on time, each one-to-one meetup will last as long as just 15 minutes – no longer than it would take to queue to use the coffee machine. SICSA and ScotChem will coordinate the matching of participants from across disciplines and scheduling of meeting times, as well as a follow up to document any interesting outcomes. The initiative is open to any researcher (academic, postdoc, PhD student) from either pool.

To participate, just fill out the very short application form here:  https://form.jotform.com/203174064600343 .

If you have any questions or would like some more information please get in touch with Tim Storer (SICSA KE Director) and/or Alan Wiles (ScotCHEM Director of Operations)

SICSA warmly welcomes two new Research Theme Leaders

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SICSA would like to extend a very warm welcome to Dr Paul Patras, University of Edinburgh, who takes over the leadership of the SICSA Networking & Systems Research Theme and Dr Mike Crabb, University of Dundee who will be co-leading the HCI Research Theme with Dr Mary Ellen Foster (University of Glasgow)

Dr Patras and Dr Crabb have been great supporters of SICSA and have had engagement with the research pool over the years through various funding programmes and the SICSA PhD Conference.  As SICSA Research Theme Leaders, Paul and Mike will be responsible to help shape and direct their themes but will also provide a face and national representation for their theme areas.

The SICSA Directorate would like to pass on their thanks to Professor Dimitrios Pezaros and Dr Martin Halvey, respectively for their input, dedication and hard work in (co) leading the themes over the past few years.

For more information about the themes or to get in touch with the theme leaders, please visit the SICSA Research Themes web-page

ScotCHEM 2020 Computational Chemistry Virtual Symposium

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SICSA is pleased to inform you that the ScotCHEM 2020 Computational Chemistry Virtual Symposium will take place on 26 August 2020 and all SICSA members are invited to attend.  The event is hosted by the University of Strathclyde

The Plenary Speaker is Prof. Adrian Roitberg, University of Florida and his talk will be “Is Quantum Chemistry Amenable for Machine Learning? Are the Computers Coming for Our Jobs

The full program can be accessed at https://www.scotch-research.com/compchem2020-program

The deadline to register is 24th August.  Full details of the event can be found here: https://www.scotch-research.com/compchem2020 

Now Recruiting for SICSA Research Theme Co-Leader in Human-Computer Interaction

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Applications are invited for any suitable member of academic staff within a SICSA Institution to co-lead the SICSA Human-Computer Interaction Research Theme.

Role Purpose

SICSA is the Scottish Funding Council Research Pool in Informatics and Computer Science.  The goal of SICSA is to cohere the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science research communities to help increase critical mass and to enable cooperation in research, teaching and Knowledge Exchange.

The role of the SICSA Theme Leaders is to coordinate activities within each of the defined SICSA themes and further develop coherent communities in these areas.

Research Theme leaders are taking on increasingly public-facing roles on behalf of SICSA. For example, our AI theme leaders are part of the government strategy group developing a national AI strategy for Scotland. While another team leader is currently considering Co-chairing a large event with business here in Scotland on behalf of SICSA. Theme Leaders are called upon to help shape and direct the theme but also to provide a face and national representation for their theme area.

If you would like to speak to the current Theme Leaders about the role please get in touch with Martin Halvey and/or Mary Ellen Foster

Please see the full HCI Research Theme Co-Leader job description for more details of the role.

To apply, please download and complete the application form and send to Aileen.Orr@glasgow.ac.uk by 30 September 2020