On Wednesday 8^th May approximately 55 women and a few men gathered in the Informatics Forum for the first Scottish screening of she++: The Documentary (http://sheplusplus.stanford.edu/film/).  This 12 minute film has been directed by two female undergraduates at Stanford University and is intended to encourage and inspire other women to become involved in computer science. The she++ group at Stanford calls itself a community for innovative women in technology, and organizes an annual symposium for college and high school students and industry professionals on what it is to be a woman working in technology.  The participants at the Edinburgh event came from a number of SICSA institutions and ranged from undergraduates to professors.

After a brief introduction by Bonnie Webber, who had organized the screening, the audience watched the short film attentively.  A lot was packed into the 12 minute film, which included a number of different perspectives from high-school students who are just enjoying their first successes with technology to industry leaders such as Jocelyn Goldfein of Facebook.

For the Edinburgh screening to initiate the discussion after the film we had assembled a panel of women with a range of different experiences. The panel consisted of:

•   Sathya Smith, Head of Partner Solutions at Google, London

•   Marcia Rankin, Head of Health Information Services, NHS24, NHS Scotland

•   Jane Hillston, Professor and Director of the LFCS, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh

•   Lexi Birch, Research Associate, ILCC, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh

Each of the panelists was asked to give her first response to the documentary before questions and comments from the audience were invited.

There was a lively discussion with reaction to the film from both the panel and the audience.  Many of us felt that it would be great if all young women in S1/S2 in schools across Scotland could see the film before making their subject choices for S3.

After the discussion there was a delicious afternoon tea and further opportunity for the audience to interact with the panelists and each other.

SICSA is pleased to announce that SFC has recently approved new guidelines for our Pools Engagement in European Research (PEER) funding; making the funding more widely accessible to Computing Science and Informatics academics and allowing academics to apply for much larger awards (up to £10,000).

The PEER funding enables SICSA to provide support for researchers in Informatics and Computing Sciences at SICSA institutions to boost participation in European projects.  We support proposals from SICSA academics to establish network connections, showcasing their skills and capabilities and participating in specific networking activities both for policy influencing and project preparation. In addition we support project preparation work and for each level of funding we expect increasing amounts of SICSA-wide involvement and larger more ambitious proposals or targets.

Funding can be sought for activities relating to any relevant EU call as long as all other conditions of funding are met) including:  funding for academics travelling to consortium meetings where they introduce a Scottish SME; consortium development meetings; establishing network connections; cost of a specialist consultant support for bids; support for SICSA academic's time to develop proposals; or admin time to coordinate bids and meetings.

SME involvement in the bid is no longer mandatory but we would still encourage every applicant to consider the potential for both involving Scottish SMEs and representing their interests whenever possible. 

The maximum we can offer for each successful applicant has increased from £1000 to £10,000, allowing much wider scope for the use of these funds. 

If you are interested in applying for PEER funding or finding out more, please visit http://www.sicsa.ac.uk/funding/peer. 

SICSA has a wide range of funding available for researchers and academic staff working in Scottish Informatics and Computing Science Departments.  The next major deadline for applications for many of these funding mechanisms is 30^th April 2013.  An outline of the current calls follows (for more details, go to the relevant links):

Postdoctoral and Early Career Researcher Exchanges (PECE)

SICSA is able to provide bursaries for researchers in Informatics and Computing Sciences at SICSA institutions to take part in researcher visits to Europe, North America, China and India. The main purpose of PECE is to provide research training and development opportunities for the most able postdocs and early career researchers in Scotland. It is also hoped that these exchanges will provide opportunities to build experience of international collaboration with academia and/or industry. There is up to £7500 available for each successful applicant. 

Deadline 30^th April 2013

SICSA Elevate

SICSA Elevate is an applied research accelerator program, supporting early career and early stage researchers from across SICSA to accelerate promising research ideas into sound business start-ups, transfer or licensing over a 12-week period.  Modelled on similar short-term accelerator programs available globally, we aim to exploit existing supports within the SICSA partner Universities, and employ funds to directly support early career researchers with an investment of £15,000 (£3,000 per researcher, up to groups of 4 and £3,000 project costs). We expect a range of sized teams per year to be supported with workspace, hands-on mentoring and weekly group meetings with industry and start-up mentors.

Deadline April 30^th 2013

SICSA Postgraduate Industry Internship Programme

SICSA is able to provide funding for current Scotland-based Informatics and Computing Science early stage researchers (i.e. research students) to undertake an industrial internship as part of their research program. Successful candidates will receive funding equivalent to up to nine months of a PhD scholarship (based on their standard stipend at their home institution), along with standard travel support and a supplement of £250 per month to partly cover accommodation costs due to the placement. Applicants can propose an internship with any size organisation, from SME to multi-national and either in the UK or abroad.

Deadline 30^th April 2013

Pools Engagement in European Research (PEER)

SICSA is able to provide bursaries for researchers in Informatics and Computing Sciences at SICSA institutions to boost participation in European FP7 projects. The main purpose of PEER is to provide support to for academics to engage and build partnerships with Scottish SMEs in order to submit collaborative proposals for European funding under FP7.

No deadline – apply at any time

Student Attendance at International Summer Schools

If you are a PhD student working in Scotland and you would like to attend a summer school relevant to one of the SICSA research themes, SICSA may be able to provide you with funding towards this. Please note that SICSA will consider providing funding for any relevant Summer School regardless of whether or not it is a SICSA sponsored event.  Students are welcome to apply for funding to attend international events. There is up to £500 available for every successful applicant. 

No deadline – apply at any time

Conference Sponsorship

SICSA is able to provide sponsorship for major international computing science and informatics focussed conferences held in Scotland. In doing so, we aim to attract prestigious events to Scotland, improving the visibility and esteem of our Institutions, as well as providing access to renowned, international events for academics and PhD students close to home. 

No deadline – apply at any time

SACHI, the St Andrews Computer Human Interaction research group and the Big Data Lab St Andrews are pleased to announce that we will jointly run a SICSA supported "Big Data Information Visualisation" summer school on July 8th-12th 2013. This summer school is concerned with the processing, management and hence presentation of "big data", in an intelligible form with information visualisation techniques and methods. In this school we take a blended theory and application approach here with hands on work with data, big data systems and information visualisation toolkits.

The first round of applications closes on March 15th, 2013.

If there are places remaining, the second round of applications will close on Apr 19th 2013.

SICSA will cover the £500 registration fee (which includes accommodation) for PhD students from most Scottish Universities (see the SICSA web-page for a list of departments that are part of SICSA). The number of SICSA students is limited to 15 and a decision on ranking if this number is exceeded will only be taken if necessary.

Some of the international and industry speakers include:

Sheelagh Carpendale, University of Calgary, Canada

Rónan McAteer, Watson Solutions Development IBM Software Group, Ireland

Sean Owen, Myrrix and co-author of Mahout in Action, UK

John Stasko, Georgia Tech, USA

along with 10 speakers from across SICSA.

 The application process is described online, as is the planned schedule for the summer school.

 How to apply?

see: http://sachi.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/activities/summer-schools/big-data-info-vis/

Register now at: SICSA Conference2013 Registration

More info at: SICSA ConferenceWeb Site

SICSA is pleased to announce that registration is now open for the 5^th SICSA PhD Conference, to be held at the University of Stirling on 12^th and 13^th June 2013. 

The SICSA PhD Conference is open to all PhD students in computer science and informatics in Scotland, not just those students funded by SICSA.  The programme has been designed to cater for students at every level of PhD research – 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd year. There are no registration fees or accommodation costs and travel expenses to attend the conference will be covered by your university.  En-suite accommodation will be available on campus. 

The conference is a forum for PhD students working within the SICSA research community. This year, the theme of the conference is "Communication and Working Together", and will feature an exciting programme including:

- Pitching Competition – Working Together To Get Funded

- Careers panel & debate, to help you decide what to do after your PhD

- Poster sessions

- Transferrable Skills sessions, aimed at developing skills to help you communicate your research: Know your Discipline; Scientific Writing and Research Papers; Thesis Writing and Vivas.

- Workshops on a variety of technical subjects: How do the big players do it?; User Experience and Mobile Interaction; Security, Privacy and Trust; The Future of Programming Languages

- There will also be keynotes from distinguished speakers including Professor Muffy Calder OBE. 

- Conference dinner and a range of social events.

Registration will close on Friday 17^th May 2013 and we advise early registration to avoid disappointment, as places are limited.  

The Scottish Informatics & Computer Science Alliance (SICSA) is pleased to confirm that the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) have recently approved funding for a range of new initiatives that will enable the alliance to significantly improve knowledge exchange between Scottish-based Informatics and Computing Science researchers and businesses, both national and global.

Following news in August 2012 that SFC was to restore previously cut funding to all of the Scottish Research Pools to be used to “facilitate early career researcher exchanges with business and industry, both within Scotland and internationally”; SICSA developed 6 brand new and diverse initiatives.  These programmes will, if fully exploited, provide opportunities to over 70 early career/early stage researchers and create a broader impact for ICS research in Scotland – encouraging inward industry investment and enhanced knowledge exchange across a range of ICS disciplines.  The programmes will be open to all early career and early stage researchers working in Informatics and Computer Science within a SICSA member institution.

These programmes, which have been approved by the SICSA Committee and SFC include:

1. SICSA Postgraduate Industry Internship Programme – Full or part funding for current PhD students to embark upon an industry internship for a period of up to 9 months. 

2. SICSA Early Career Industry Fellowships – Providing a salary and a contribution towards research costs for successful candidates to work on collaborative projects with industry over a period of one year (full-time) or two years (part-time). 

3. SICSA Distinguished Industrial Visitor Fellowship (DIVF) – Modelled on the current SICSA Distinguished Visitor Fellowship programme, this programme offers financial and organisational support to eminent members of industry who wish to come and work in Scotland. 

4. SICSA Proof of Concept Programme – Funding for early career researchers to facilitate exchanges and connections with business and industry, both within Scotland and internationally.  This funding will allow researchers to rapidly respond to industrial challenge competitions, open-data sets etc. and funding can be utilised flexibly – for example to support a research assistant to work on an industry facing problem or for a developer to realise a working proof of concept based on an identified industry problem.

5. SICSA Team based Industrial Placements – Support to facilitate 3 month team-based industrial placements within industry.  As well as providing financial support for team based placements, SICSA will also work with external agencies and businesses to identify opportunities for such projects.

6. SICSA Elevate – This is an applied research accelerator programme, supporting early career researchers from across SICSA to accelerate promising research ideas into sound business start-ups, transfer or licencing over a 12 week period. 

Further information and application procedures are available at the SICSA web site – www.sicsa.ac.uk.  For more information on these programmes, please email admin@sicsa.ac.uk. 

Media enquiries to: Professor Aaron Quigley, SICSA Director for Knowledge Exchange/ SICSA Deputy Director, aquigley@st-andrews.ac.uk. Telephone: +44 (0) 1334 461623.