FACULTY RESEARCH COMMITTEE (FRC)


MEETINGS:
One meeting held: 16-05-06
Further details of papers and minutes for meetings available on
Faculty of Engineering Intranet (Engineering Net).

CHAIRMAN'S COMMUNICATIONS:
Two submitted applications for RCUK (Built Environment, Computer Science)
were successful and would commence October 2006.

Conference report on recent visit to Indian Institutions is available
and there is a call for proposals open with details at:
http://www.ukieri.org

Funding is available to release Research Institute staff from 
teaching duties and applications are managed centrally by the research
office.

Proposal for Faculty's Research Committee & Technology and 
Knowledge Transfer Committee to merge to give a single 
Research & Innovation Committee.

RESEARCH & INNOVATION COMMITTEE
Post of coordinator for concordat matters had been retrawled at 50%
secondment but no applications had been received. 
It was decided to leave the post in abeyance pro-term.

Suggestion of separation of School and Research Institute finances 
should be made from the bottom up using module loads and rebuilding from
scratch the income and expenditure for each area. Finance would model
the two very different School/RI scenarios and outcome of the modelling
exercise was awaited.  

Working Group would be established to produce requirements specification
for updating Faculty research web pages.

RESEARCH INSTITUTES:
For the Computer Science Research Institute (CSRI) (UoA-25):

RI membership consisted of 28 core and 12 associate members.

Publications output of 28 core members reported as
4*(10%), 3*(65%), 2*(20%), and 1*(5%).

Total income and expenditure during RAE period were 13M pounds and
6M pounds respectively.

some part-time teaching hours may be required.


RESEARCH GRADUATE SCHOOL BOARD (RGSB):
Two meetings held: 06-07-06, 27-10-06 
Further details of papers and minutes for meetings available on
Faculty of Engineering Intranet (Engineering Net).

Chair confirmed that no additional funding was available for Ph.D. extensions
and this is in line with UU financial policy. 

Chair would raise issues on demonstrating (rate, payslips) with UU
Research & Innovation Committee via UU Research Degree's Committee.

Research students could liaise with Heads of School regarding lecturing
opportunities prior to commencement of academic year. 

Student representatives felt that generic and research skills training
courses were mostly applicable to other Faculties. Chair confirmed
that a number of Faculty specific courses would be delivered over
the summer and during the 2006/07 academic year. 

Annual research dinner occurred on 6 April 2006
(best Ph.D. research: Damien Coyle, best Ph.D. thesis: Qing-Xiang Wu). 

It was noted that several student representatives had taken the
decision not to attend the RDC meeting due to mileage allowance
provided by the UU. PVC research & Innovation is currently involved
in discussions relating to car mileage.

Poster session for students to present their work during year 2 (full-time)
and year 4 (part-time) would be organised together with the annual
research dinner and awards ceremony and a prize would be awarded for the
best poster in each Research Institute.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------