Category Archives: grant

July 2007 Graduate Programme in Visualisation, Graphics and Vision (VGV)

VGV Logo

In the first week of July 2007 a group of academics from the three Dublin-based universities – Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, and Dublin City University led by Prof. Carol O’Sullivan submitted a GREP application for a Graduate Programme in Visualisation, Graphics and Vision (VGV) to IRCSET. This was the culmination, in funding terms, of over 18 months collective effort involving visits to 30 international sites and an in depth local marketing survey. In research and academic terms, this is but one of the first steps to the establishment of an international leading graduate program.

This graduate research education programme on Visualisation, Graphics and Vision (VGV) will combine the international research track records of leading academics from TCD, UCD and DCU in the highly complementary thematic areas of graphics, animation, vision, image engineering, visualisation and simulation. The program is built around a networked virtual campus, that facilitates leading world-class research, industry engagement, inter-disciplinary collaboration and the development of a student cohort with industrially relevant research skills.

Now that the grant application has gone in we hope to move onto the development of the recruitment and hiring process for a student intake in Sept/Oct 2007 along with starting our program in the small with the expectation we can ramp up as suitable funds become available.

July 2007 Grant Evaluation FCT Portugal

FCT

In late June I was invited by the Foundation for Science and the Technology Portugal (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) to evaluate a number of grant proposals on a Computer Engineering Panel. This involved the detail review and evaluation of over 15 proposals followed by a two day scientific evaluation panel meeting hosted at the offices of the Science and Technology Foundation – Lisbon.

Overall this was a very rewarding and enlightening experience. Having been involved in remote project evaluations in Ireland, the UK, Australia and Canada this level of involvement and commitment took the oversight process to a new level of rigour. This process is how the SFI in Ireland reviews many of its grant applications and it really is international best practice. The Foundation for Science and the Technology promotes national scientific inquiry and the technological development through financing project at institutions of scientific inquiry. All project funding decisions are made through a public competition and independent evaluations are carried out by panels consisting by foreign scientists, such as the one I was involved with.

The round I was involved with had over 5,000 applications which has kept the hard working staff in the FCT busy for many many months!

June 2007 Expert Panel Visualisation, Graphics and Vision

Mark BillinghurstProf. Jessica K.Hodgins, CMU Prof. James Crowley, INPG/INRIA

On June 16, 2007 we had an expert panel review our proposed inter-University graduate program in Visualisation, Graphics and Vision. Academics from the three Dublin-based universities – Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, and Dublin City University presented. Representatives from all three organisations attended and the proposal and its background were presented to the panel under the following headings:

  • Introduction to Team and panel members.
  • Vision: research goals, scientific rationale
  • Context: current Irish system; graduate education and funding environment, esp. current IRCSET calls
  • Research: overview of current research and graduate education activities of team Infrastructure: facilities, equipment and services available in the three institutions
  • Best Practice: presentation and discussion by team members on outputs of visits to international centres of excellence
  • Industry Liaison: planned industry involvement and market research undertaken
  • Programme: detailed presentation of the contents of the proposed programme, including taught modules, structures and governance

The expert panel provided us detailed feedback in terms of:

  • Funding
  • Recruitment/Advertising
  • Admissions
  • Courses/Modules
  • Governance
  • Evaluation

The panel said they were very impressed with the calibre of the programme team, which consists of high-quality, well-respected researchers with international reputations in the fields of visualisation, graphics and vision. They particularly liked the complementary expertise within the team, the range of ages and experience, and the interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaborative spirit and enthusiasm that was evident from the presentations and discussions at the meeting. The panel believes that this programme will be novel and ground-breaking, and could serve as an example for future such programs internationally.

Based on this experience, our industrial survey and visits to over 30 institutions internationally we are planning a submission to IRCSET under their up coming call for full GREPs.

Prof. Ming C. Lin, UNC Chapel HillProf. Peter Eades, NICTA/Usyd AustraliaProf. Philipp Slusallek

June 2007 China Research Trip

Gaming and Graphics Workshop Beijing

From May 27th until June 4th I took part in an IRCSET funded GREP research visit with my colleague Marie Redmond from Trinity College Dublin to China. IRCSET funded our exploratory grant which supported this trip for the development of a Graduate Programme in Visualisation, Graphics and Vision.

We visited two Universities, Tsinghua in Beijing and Fudan in Shanghai along with Microsoft Research and IBM Research. In addition we attend the two day Asia-Pacific Regional Workshop on Gaming & Graphics in Beijing. This event allowed us to meet a wide range of academics from China, Japan, Korea and Australia. This two-day workshop included Microsoft Research Asia updates along with research and teaching presentations university faculty members. In addition these was one poster session and several moderated and informal group discussions. Our visit to Fudan was hosted by colleagues from UCD and UCD collaborators in the Software School. My school in UCD teaches a joint undergraduate degree program with the Software School in Fudan. This visit helped us focus on their Visualisation, Graphics and Vision research and 4th level plans.
MSRA Group Photo - G&G 07

The overall aim of this visit was document best practice in graduate research education in Chinese Universities and to understand how stronger links with industry and research labs can be developed.

Apr 2007 Graduate Research Education: Sweden

SICS

On April 18th I took part in an IRCSET funded GREP research visit with my colleague Gavin Doherty from Trinity College Dublin. IRCSET funded an exploratory grant which supported this trip for the development of a Graduate Programme in Visualisation, Graphics and Vision.

We attended an Open Day of the Swedish Institute of Computer Science and the Interactive Institute in Stockholm Sweden hosted by Dr. Jim Dowling. The aim of this visit was document best practice in graduate research education and to understand how stronger links with industry and research labs can be developed. While this was only a one day event we managed to speak with over 20 academics and graduate students from around Sweden representing 6 different Universities.

The following day a group of HCI academics in Uppsala very graciously gave us many hours of their time for an in depth discussion of graduate education in Sweden. Their combined experience has brought about their inter-disciplinary Master in HCI. From their description of the years of effort in creating this program and the strong industry links it’s clear this will be the gold standard in graduate HCI education.

Our meeting in Uppsala was a very productive and informative half-day event. We are very thankful to Professor Mats Lind, Professor Jan Gulliksen, Professor Bengt Sandblad and all their team for their time and efforts with us. Graduate Education both taught and at the post doctoral level is markedly different between Sweden and Ireland. We aim to learn from these differences. We hope our proposed GREP can establish strong links with this world class HCI program.

Masters in HCI Uppsala

Dec 2006 GREP research visit Sydney and Tokyo

VGV Graduate Programme in Visualisation, Graphics and Vision research and exploratory visits to NICTA (Australia), University of Sydney and the NII Tokyo Japan.

I even got to meet up with one of my former student Taiki Imoto from Hizen-Cho Saga Japan who I taught when he was just 15 and now he is 27! I’m now officially old and here are some photos from my time in Japan in 1995.