Category Archives: SICSA

Hui Shyong Yeo

Oct 2020: Congrats to Hui Shyong Yeo

Congratulations to Hui Shyong Yeo who has been shortlisted for the SICSA PhD Award for Best Dissertation 2020. His thesis is entitled “Single-Handed Interaction Techniques for Mobile and Wearable Computing”. Yeo submitted his PhD based on an extensive and impressive body of research published in leading HCI venues including CHI, UIST, UbiComp (IMWUT), MobileHCI and ISWC.

“By bringing together academics from across Universities in Scotland, SICSA has created one of the largest top-quality research clusters in Computing Science in the world. They are spread among all our Research Themes, representing key clusters of expertise within our member universities. In their breadth across the entire field of Computer Science and the depth represented by being on the cutting-edge of the field, the Graduate Academy is a key resource.”

SICSA Logo

March 2020: SICSA Funding Calls

We are pleased to announce that the Scottish Funding Council has awarded us further funding to continue the Scottish Informatics & Computer Science Alliance (SICSA) research pool until July 2021. 

We now have a new series of funding calls open with increased support across our research themes with the aim to extend and expand our links with other research pools (SUPA/SULSA/SINAPSE etc.) and with different innovation centres. https://www.sicsa.ac.uk/funding/

To support students in SICSA, we have a new program of SICSA Research Scholars to undertake studies and/or research via Summer/Winter Schools attendance and/or research visits. 

For staff, SICSA can support, Academic and Research Distinguished Visiting Fellow (Academic or Industry), Research Theme Event Sponsorship, Postdoctoral and Early Career Researcher Exchanges (PECE), our European Leaders Programme and Education Event Sponsorship.  Full information on the funding opportunities can be found at https://www.sicsa.ac.uk/funding/.

The next deadline is April 30th, and we welcome applications for Research Theme Events which connect between SICSA themes or connect SICSA to other research pools. Submissions with commitments of matched funding from other research pools or innovation centres are strongly encouraged. Some of these events might aim to explore grand challenges while other events might focus of emerging research topics. This is also a great way to work with other Research Themes, SFC Research Pools and/or Scottish Innovation Centres.  

Please get in touch with Aileen (Aileen.Orr@glasgow.ac.uk) if you have any questions on these funding opportunities.

2019 SICSA appoints new Director

SICSA has appointed Professor Aaron Quigley of the University of St Andrews as its new Director. Professor Quigley commences the role on July 4th 2019.

Professor Quigley is the Chair of Human Computer Interaction in the School of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews. He co-founded SACHI (St Andrews Computer Human Interaction research group) and served as its Director until 2018.

He is currently the ACM SIGCHI Vice President for Conferences (members of the ACM SIGCHI Executive Committee), member of the ACM Europe Council Conferences Working Group, a board member of ScotlandIS and an ACM Distinguished Speaker. He will also be general co-chair for the ACM CHI conference in Asia in 2021.

He is no stranger to SICSA, having previously served as Deputy Director/Director for Knowledge Exchange and as Co-leader for the SICSA Human Computer Interaction Research Theme for several years. We are delighted that he will return as Director in the summer.

(from: https://www.sicsa.ac.uk/news/sicsa-appoints-new-director/

SICSA Logo

SICSA Knowledge Exchange

As the SICSA Deputy Director and Director of Knowledge Exchange I’m been learning more about the Knowledge Exchange we undertake in SICSA with industry. SICSA includes all staff and students in Informatics and Computer Science in Scotland and as such all the opportunities available are open to all. If you are a new SICSA PhD student I’ll be meeting you and discussing much of this in detail at the new PhD induction day on Nov 26th in Edinburgh.

SICSA knowledge exchange manifests itself in things like the annual DemoFest, complimentary support to the tech transfer office in each Scottish University, entrepreneurial education, mobile apps clubs etc. Most of the support for SICSA knowledge exchange comes out of the AspeKT program in Informatics in Edinburgh.

Examples of knowledge exchange supports SICSA helps with include:

If you are in SICSA and reading this then I’d encourage you to discuss your knowledge exchange plans (spin outs, start ups, engagement ideas etc.) with your own tech transfer office first.

Other details on the different and ongoing mechanisms for sustaining and expanding Scotland’s research excellence in Informatics and Computer Science SICSA has can be seen in an earlier post.

I am, you are, we are SICSA!

SICSA is the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance. I’ve been the deputy director and director for knowledge exchange with SICSA for a little over a month now. Yesterday I attended my first meeting of the SICSA committee with academics representing Universities from
across Scotland. Attending this meeting prompted me to write this post.

SICSA has so far
appointed more than 30 new staff and have offered more than 70 prize
studentships to PhD students from around the world. However, SICSA is more than just these people. Indeed, in my time in Scotland I’ve met a few students and indeed academics in Computer Science and Informatics who said that “they aren’t in SICSA” or that “SICSA events or support wasn’t for them”. This is simply not the case. SICSA was established to “Sustain and expand Scotland’s research excellence in Informatics and Computer Science“. This means all academics, researchers, postdocs, postgrads and others in Informatics and Computer Science across Scotland are part of SICSA. i.e. “we are all SICSA”.  Indeed, given our mandate to work closely with industry and government, I would hope everyone in the ICT industry in Scotland feels they can give and get something from working with SICSA. While there were only 10 Universities involved with SICSA at its
inception, today we have representation and involvement from every
University with Informatics and Computer Science.

Over the past month I have been coming to grips with my new role. Along with learning new things about how Scottish Funding Council funding pools work it’s also given me a new appreciation for the wealth of mechanisms for collaboration my predecessors have put in place. I’m going to be blogging about knowledge exchange in more detail in the coming months but for now I’d like to highlight a number of different and ongoing mechanisms for sustaining and expanding Scotland’s research excellence in Informatics and Computer Science.

Themes:

Firstly, and I’ll admit I’m somewhat biased as I was a former theme leader, but I think the four SICSA themes are an excellent way to get to know people here, share ideas, make new contacts and step into the broader SICSA community. Each theme organises a myriad of activities too numerous to describe here. The four themes are the Next Generation Internet, Multimodal Interaction, Modelling and Abstraction and Complex Systems Engineering. Along with being leading academics in their respective fields, I’ve found the theme leaders and their deputies all to be very approachable people. If you have an idea for something which a theme might be able to help with, get in touch. Each theme has a mailing list which is worth subscribing to so that you are kept upto date.

Summer Schools:

Secondly, and again with no hint of bias, I consider the SICSA summer school support to be an ideal way to spread your research ideas and to generate real impact. In June of 2010, along with colleagues from across SICSA, we organised a summer school on Digital Tourism. The focus of that summer school was to introduce a new generation of researchers to the latest advances in multimodal systems, In this school we focused on multimodal input and output interfaces, data fusion techniques and hybrid architectures, vision, speech and conversational interfaces, haptic interaction, mobile, tangible and virtual/augmented multimodal UIs, tools and system infrastructure issues for designing interfaces and their evaluation. I really enjoyed running this event and I think the students gained a lot from it. The deadline for applications for Summer Schools taking place in 2013 is 30th September 2012. 

Postdoctoral and Early Career researcher Exchanges

Thirdly, my colleague in St Andrews Dr Adam Barker (who leads the big data lab here) was able to take advantage of PECE the SICSA support for Postdoctoral and Early Career researcher Exchanges. This helped support Adam in his time as a Visiting Scholar in the AMPLab, UC Berkeley. While we had to suffer his tweets on the glorious California weather he was able to make a host of exellent connections and has developed new research perspectives which I for one am looking forward to taking advantage of!  The next deadline for Postdoctoral and Early Career Researcher Exchanges is Oct 31st 2012 (PECE). 

Distinguished Visiting Fellowships

Fourthly, SICSA has supported many Distinguished Visiting Fellowships for scholars from across the world to spend time here, working with colleagues across SICSA. While I’ve not yet hosted such a DVF I have been able to take advantage of the program by including such visitors in summer school programs, getting my students to attend their seminars or masterclasses or indeed simply growing my own research knowledge on a particular topic. I’m looking forward to taking advantage of the DVF program over the coming years. The next deadline for Distinguished Visiting Fellowships is Oct 31st 2012.

Pools Engagement in European Research

Fifth, “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. ” More details on this funding is available here. One of my roles is to further shape SICSA’s knowledge exchange approach which includes mechanisms such as PEER.

PhD Conference

Sixth, there is a SICSA PhD conference which my students have benefited from attending. This brings together Computing Science and Informatics PhD students, leading academics, and industry practitioners for a number of days of workshops, keynote presentations and social events. The expected dates for the PhD conference in 2013 are June 12/13th in Sterling.

I find I don’t write as much on this blog as I used to as I’m now prone to smaller updates with twitter. You can follow me @aquigley. Likewise you can follow these SICSA account on cybersecurity in Scotland @sicsa_cybersec, of smart tourism @SICSA_Tourism or Mobile Computing @SICSAmobile and the general SICSA account at @SICSA_Scotland.

If you are an academic in Computer Science and Informatics in Scotland please get involved.  

July 2012, SICSA Deputy Director/Director Knowledge Exchange

From the 1st of August 2012 I will be the SICSA Deputy Director/Director of Knowledge Exchange in Scotland.  SICSA is the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance and is a collaboration of Scottish Universities whose goal is to develop and extend Scotland’s position as a world leader in Informatics and Computer Science research and education. See the SICSA website for more details.

Feb 2011: IDEAS Executive Committee membership

I have been invited to join the IDEAS Executive Committee as the external member, and will contribute to guiding the strategic direction of IDEAS. IDEAS is a new multi-disciplinary research centre encompassing the disciplines of Engineering, Computing, Architecture& Built Environment and Art & Design.

Apr 2010 – Professor in the Chair of Human Computer Interaction

I will be moving to Scotland in July of 2010 to start my new appointment as Professor in the Chair of Human Computer Interaction at the School of Computer Science in St. Andrews University Scotland.

“St Andrews (founded in 1411) is the oldest university in Scotland. It has won international renown for both research and education and consistently features among the highest ranking British universities in league tables compiled, for example, by the Times Higher Education Supplement”.

“The School of Computer Science organises its research by working within small but highly motivated teams. These teams are often fluid, acquiring and losing researchers as the focus of interest shifts. To stimulate such a dynamic high-quality environment, the School’s research is organised into a three overlapping themes that cover four areas of theoretical and practical Computer Science:

  • Networked and distributed systems including computer networking, distributed systems engineering and systems architecture
  • Complex systems engineering including software engineering, system dependability, middleware and social informatics
  • Artificial intelligence and symbolic computation including computational algebra, computational logic, natural language processing, constraint programming, intelligent computation, automated reasoning and image processing.”

The School is a host institution in the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA), which is providing partial funding for my post (www.sicsa.ac.uk).

“The overall objectives of SICSA are to build a world-class Scottish computer science research community and to promote cultural change so that researchers in Scotland work collaboratively rather than in competition. The SISCA research themes of Next-generation Internet, Multi-modal Interaction, Modelling & Abstraction and Complex Systems Engineering.”