Report on Research Afternoon School of Computing & Intelligent Systems, Magee Wednesday, September 12th, 2001 Prof. Paul Mc Kevitt, Research Development Coordinator, School of Computing & Intelligent Systems, Faculty of Informatics, Magee 1. Introduction A research afternoon was held by the School of Computing & Intelligent Systems, Faculty of Informatics on Wednesday, September 12th, 2001, 2.00 - 5.00 PM. It was organised and chaired by Prof. Paul Mc Kevitt, the School's Research Development Coordinator. The afternoon incorporated a presentation on research funding by Prof. David Bustard, Head of School of Information & Software Engineering, a panel discussion on `What is research?' and a breakout session of the School's research groups (Intelligent Systems, Intelligent MultiMedia) on `How do we foster research at Magee Informatics?''. The agenda, panel session and breakout session information are found at: http://www.infm.ulst.ac.uk/~paul/research/agenda http://www.infm.ulst.ac.uk/~paul/research/panel and http://www.infm.ulst.ac.uk/~paul/research/breakout Paul Mc Kevitt introduced the meeting and the guests from other campuses of the Faculty of Informatics. He also pointed out that Mr. Barry Henderson from the technology transfer and licensing division of the Science Innovation Centre was present and would be meeting with staff and his contributions were welcome. (Barry had useful discussions with staff members during the refreshments break and sent a follow-up e-mail after the meeting, which Paul Mc Kevitt forwarded by e-mail to all attendees -- see Appendix A). Paul noted that it had been a while since Magee Informatics had such a research meeting and he welcomed everyone and thanked them for attending. Paul Mc Kevitt expressed his thanks to Ms. Jackie Gallagher, Mr. Paddy McDonough, Mr. Chris McCallion and Mr. Terry Curran for help with administrative, computing, audio-visual and photography support for the afternoon. Prof. Martin Mc Ginnity said that we must try to build up research at Magee Informatics but that it would not be easy and that it may be the case that not everyone will choose to do research. Martin also said that a choice not to do research is acceptable, provided everyone contributes to the School's operation in a substantive manner, and that he would support staff decisions either way. The meeting had an attendance of just under 40 people. 2. Research Funding Prof. David Bustard, Head of School, Information & Software Engineering, gave a presentation on `Research Funding'. His slides are available at: http://www.infm.ulst.ac.uk/~paul/research/bustard.ppt David's main message was for staff to develop a research plan to work out where funding is desirable, rather than chase funding opportunities without a plan. David pointed out that some staff in the Faculty felt that chasing research funding was not something that they would do and they would rather get on with research themselves. Others submitted research proposals all the time and it tended to be the same people putting in many of the proposals. He also noted that our Faculty did not have that many projects funded by EPSRC and that many of them were by younger Faculty who had obtained fast-track funding. He pointed out that the Faculty may soon be taking a more formal approach to the submission of research proposals, particularly to EPSRC, where a panel would vet proposals so that they have a stronger chance of being accepted. His main point was that obtaining funding is very difficult and proposals can be strengthened by having others look at them. This is currently handled informally but it would be better if it was organised. It relies on people preparing proposals in good time but a rushed effort is unlikely to be successful anyway. Proposals should be prepared by teams rather than individuals. Everyone in the team should have a clear role in the project. David noted that time is a problem for many staff and that when he first became an academic staff member it was a shock how little time there was for real research. 3. Panel session The question `What is research?' was addressed by the panel members who were, Prof. Terry Anderson, Informatics Graduate School Head, Prof. David Bustard, Information & Software Engineering School Head, Dr. Gerry McAllister, Informatics Knowledge Transfer Director, Prof. Martin Mc Ginnity, Magee Informatics School Head, and Prof. Paul Mc Kevitt, Magee Informatics Research Coordinator. David Bustard stated that he believed research to be something which involved developing unique ideas and creativity. He noted that research can involve going out to industry and solving real problems which people there have. David pointed out that he had experienced occasions where consultancy matched with research and that was beneficial. He also felt that TCS (Teaching Company Scheme) projects were not something to be getting into unless they matched with one's research interest and there was an overlap. Prof. Terry Anderson stated that research is something which one has to be interested in and that it may be the case that one's research contributed to a unit of assessment different from unit 25 (computing). Dr. Gerry McAllister stated that many staff had put effort into technology transfer projects such as those in the TCS (Teaching Company Scheme) programme and that that effort should be recognised. Also, institutions such as UU would need to make it clear that if they wished to have technology transfer and spin-off companies then such activity should be rewarded as much as pure research. Gerry noted that not everyone can be good at everything and that some will be better at pure research and others better at technology transfer (PMcK note: The UK DTI (Dept. of Trade & Industry) has attacked the RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) on this basis, in that too many university staff are too busy publishing papers rather than bringing technology transfer and innovation to industry.) Prof. Martin Mc Ginnity stated that he agreed with what Prof. Bustard had said and that research is a unique contribution to knowledge and involved PASSION -- one has to have a passion for research. He noted that it may be the case that one has to decide one night between watching a football match and solving some research problem or working on a paper. Prof. Paul Mc Kevitt said that there seemed to be agreement in what most of the panel members had already said and that there was not much conflict in their statements. He said he agreed with what panel members had said and in particular with Prof.'s Bustard and Mc Ginnity in that research involves a unique contribution to knowledge. He said he would like to give two specific examples of research: (1) A natural language processing (NLP) dialogue system (OSCON) which answers English questions in English about the UNIX and MS-DOS computer operating systems in real-time and builds a model of the level of expertise of the user interacting with the system over time and, in turn, uses this model to modify dynamically within the dialogue the responses of the system to the user; (2) A system (CHAMELEON) which integrates spoken natural language dialogue interaction with image processing. Paul noted that there is a confusion between the UK RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) and research and that Prof. Ivo Duentsch had made this point during the Faculty research day in Jordanstown. The former is a UK government exercise which may be implemented in a particular manner by particular institutions and Faculties and that there is a distinction and TENSIONS between this process and what research is. Paul noted that of course after discovering some unique idea it would then be possible to manifest it by playing the RAE game. Johnny Wallace pointed out that he agreed with Dr. McAllister and that people's efforts with respect to technology transfer should be recognised by institutions including UU. Peter Kelly asked the panel what was their view on the possibility of a Faculty panel vetting and limiting the submission of research proposals to EPSRC. Peter felt that sure, it is useful for colleagues to comment on potential proposals, but a Faculty panel set up to decide which proposals go forward could possibly be a fallible procedure. David Bustard responded saying that such a panel could provide a useful mechanism and the plan is that the panel be supportive, in that its focus would be to improve proposals before they left UU, as opposed to being a body to prevent proposals leaving the university. Ken Adams asked the panel what he thought was a naive question as to what were the funds from research grant funding spent on. David Bustard answered that most of the funds were spent on people and travel but also equipment. David also noted that sometimes not all the funds are spent and grant holders are in the embarrassing position of having to return funds to the awarding agency -- he could think of at least one specific instance of this. Barry Henderson (Science Innovation Centre) made the point that consultancy could be used as a means of attracting funding from, and build up links to, industry and could lead to follow-on projects such as the IRTU START programme. Paul Mc Kevitt said that to sum up the panel session there are tensions between what research is and the RAE, technology transfer and consultancy and that it is necessary to strike the right balance between these various activities and it will always be the case that some are better than others at certain activities. 4. Breakout session During the breakout session the Intelligent Systems (ISEL) and Intelligent MultiMedia (IMM) groups of the School discussed the question: ``HOW DO WE foster research at Magee Informatics ??''. The IMM group reported: * Ideas and brainstorming are important * Real groupwork is necessary where staff share publications and funding within the group * the group will have sub themes (spoken dialogue systems, image processing & visualisation, distributed systems & traditional multimedia, swarming) * information sharing is useful where members know about funding opportunities, good journals, conferences, etc.) * communication is important (by use of e-mail, bulletin & discussion boards) * branding & pooling are useful where the group can be recognised and interdisciplinary links to the Humanities will be beneficial (as well as links to the School's ISEL group) * there are serious problems with the School's student/staff ratio (SS-RATIO) and that there is not much TIME for research It was noted that the School has a SS-RATIO which is nearly double the national average for computing and how, with the best will in the world, was the School to develop research in the context of this UNDERSTAFFING? One group member (to remain nameless) noted that Industrial Action might be a possible approach towards solving this problem. (Paul said he believed the Head of School was taking steps to obtain more staff for the School....) * there are tensions with the RAE and perceived ``quality'' of research The ISEL group reported: * important to foster researchers by: (1) finding an area of interest (2) doing a review paper & literature search (conferences, journals) (3) obtaining D.Phil. students * we should be selective on research and industrial collaboration keeping the RAE in mind * research should be stimulated more at the undergraduate level * process to research: (1) inspired (2) investigate (3) find deficiencies (4) look to make a contribution (5) conference paper (6) journal paper (7) research grant (8) find research students * how are undergraduates with no Master's introduced to research? * researchers should review skills, identify deficiencies, look for co-workers, collaboration * a (research oriented) module on intelligent techniques could be introduced to final year building on the School's strengths * research active incentives -- less admin work * important to obtain more research students and ones which are interested in core areas of research * consider staff returning to research A general discussion ensued in plenum: Martin Mc Ginnity noted that research is a step by step process where it starts off with a simple idea which develops and Paul Mc Kevitt added: it GROWS! Ken Adams invited discussion on whether we should be taking a shot-gun or bullet approach. Ken asked whether we should create a spread of ideas across a broad area and hope some of them find good targets or do we consolidate our efforts in a few chosen plausible areas and therefore encourage people to work in groups. Ken asked if a useful strategy would not be for one to present initial ideas informally within a given group before working the idea through to testing and results and finding it may be a dead-end. Ken also noted that the value of groupwork is that someone may be good at say, mathematics and working out some proof or theorem and may not be that brilliant at programming and another may be better at programming the solution up. Martin Mc Ginnity responded that the way things were going at the university teamwork would be very important. A discussion opened up as to whether papers should be a focus or rather, it should be ideas. Michael McNeill and Paul Mc Kevitt said that the focus should be on unique creative ideas and that everything else hung off that, i.e. papers, the RAE and funding. Paul Mc Kevitt said that he thought project-based learning and groupwork were important in teaching and that undergraduates should be stimulated into research through modules which brought research discussion into teaching but also through experience with groupwork on projects. Liam McDaid brought up a point on the supervision of Ph.D. students -- he said that it could be an idea to involve groups members more in the supervision of all Ph.D. students where students could receive comments and input on their work. Martin McGinnity noted that officially w.r.t. the research office students would have a main supervisor, 2nd supervisor and advisor. Peter Kelly said he would like to find out more about what others are working on. (PMcK note: Paul Mc Kevitt has enquired from the Dean and Head of School if there would be funds available to help organise a School Seminar/Colloquium Series where we would have some internal seminars but, more important, external seminars from invited guests from other institutions. It seems there is a delay until a Faculty Research Coordinator is appointed). Ted Leath announced that he would be willing to help the School with development of web pages, e-mail lists and other technical support which members required. Martin McGinnity said he would like to hear more views from the Ph.D. research students present but it seems they were shy to speak. Paul Mc Kevitt noted that Dr. Liam Maguire would have liked to have been with us today but could not be since he was on leave. Paul said he would like to express Liam's view that research is difficult and that Liam has a particular view on what it means for one to be a group member. Paul said that he would personally brief Liam on the day's events. Paul Mc Kevitt said that it is important for the School of Computing & Intelligent Systems to be conscious of conducting unique creative research and that the School had an identity with its focus on Intelligence and should become known on the island of Ireland and further afield for groundbreaking work in this area. Prof. Martin Mc Ginnity thanked Prof. Paul Mc Kevitt for organising this afternoon and with applause from Martin and the audience Paul thanked everyone for demonstrating their support by attending this very important Magee meeting on research. The afternoon finished with: LET'S DO IT. 5. Actions ACTION: Paul Mc Kevitt to write up summary of the afternoon's proceedings (this document) ACTION: Paul Mc Kevitt to work with Ted Leath on web pages, e-mail list and d/b-boards for the IMM research group ACTION: Paul Mc Kevitt to continue to pursue with the Head of School and Dean a budget for organising a School seminar/colloquia series ACTION: Paul Mc Kevitt to renotify the Dean and Head of School on behalf of the IMM research group that as part of agreed group strategy the group requests representation (i.e. a group member, ideally a Professor) on shortlisting, interviewing and appointment of further academic and other staff in the School ACTION: Head of School to continue to campaign for more staff for the School to solve the School's serious understaffing problems. 6. Picture gallery Mr. Terry Curran of IT User Services, Magee kindly took some Photographs of the afternoon which are available at: http://www.infm.ulst.ac.uk/~paul/research/photos/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Appendix A: E-mail from Barry Henderson (Technology Transfer) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From BP.Henderson@ulst.ac.uk Fri Sep 21 22:55:39 2001 Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 17:29:51 +0100 From: Henderson Barry To: McKevitt Paul Cc: Barnett Chris Subject: Technology Transfer [ The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set. ] [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ] [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ] Dear Paul, Thank you once again for the invitation to your research afternoon. I found very useful, both in the topics discussed and the contacts I made. As you may be aware, our office exists within the University to help academics with exploitation and commercialisation processes, and can action the following; a) Advise on IPR issues and secure IP rights, e.g. patents, design rights etc. b) Confidentiality Agreements (CDA's) c) Favourable terms for license and research agreements d) Secure additional funding for your research e) Spin out companies Please feel free to pass on my contact details to any appropriate members of staff. Regards, Barry Barry Henderson Technology Transfer and Licensing Executive Technology Transfer Section, Research Office, Science Innovation Centre, University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland BT52 1ST Tel: (028) 7028 0000 Fax: (028) 7028 0010 Mobile: 07866 494 573 bp.henderson@ulst.ac.uk www.ulst.ac.uk ********************************************************************** The contents of, and the information contained in this email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and legally privileged, and are sent for the personal attention of the addresse(s). If you are not the intended addressee, any use, disclosure or copying of this document or attached files is unauthorised. ********************************************************************** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------