Winton Capital Management establishes new prizes for world-leading students

ECS-Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton is delighted to announce the establishment of the Winton Capital Prizes, which will be awarded to the top students in Computer Science over the next three years.

As the UK’s largest and most successful integrated department of Computer Science and Electronics, ECS has a world-leading reputation for its education and research which draws students to the University from around the world. Over the last 20 years ECS has made fundamental contributions to the development of the Web, to the establishment of agent technologies, to Open Access publishing and digital libraries, and to a range of other technologies at the forefront of computer science.

Winton‘s philanthropic support will establish three prizes: for the top student in Computer Science Year 1; the top final-year student on the four-year MEng programme in Computer Science; and the top student on the one-year postgraduate MSc in Software Engineering.

The Winton Prizes will be awarded for the first time in July 2011 at the University's graduation ceremonies.

Matthew Beddall, Winton Capital’s Chief Investment Officer and a Southampton graduate (Maths/Computer Science 2001), comments: “Winton is a scientific research organisation which uses the financial markets as our laboratory. I started here as a summer intern when I was still a student at Southampton and without the University’s teaching and scientific training I would not have been in a position to take advantage of the opportunity. I am delighted that Winton is now able to give something back to the University.â€?

“We are very pleased to acknowledge the generosity of Winton Capital in making these awards,â€? said Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Dean of Physical and Applied Sciences.

“It is well known that our courses are intensive and challenging and our students work extremely hard. These prizes will be a great recognition of their effort, especially at times of financial stringency and will improve our ability to recruit the best and brightest students from around the world. “We very much look forward to working with Winton over the next three years and to welcoming the company to ECS to meet our students.â€?

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.