Professor Wendy Hall appointed to European Scientific Council
Professor Wendy Hall, Head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science, at the University of Southampton, was today named by the European Commission as one of the 22 eminent founding members of the new Scientific Council of the European Research Council (ERC).
The European Research Council is a new funding organization for frontier research across Europe, including science and technology, social sciences, and the humanities, which will be part of the Seventh Research Framework Programme (2007-13). The Scientific Council, an independent body representing the interests of science and research at the very highest level, will determine the ERC's scientific strategy.
The 22 scientist who make up the membership of the new ERC Scientific Council were chosen by an independent panel of high-level scientists, chaired by Lord Patten.
'It is a great honour to be chosen as a founding member of the Scientific Council,' said Professor Hall. 'This is an enormously important and timely initiative, and one that is strategically very significant for the future of European science and technology.
'The ERC will fund the best of European science and scholarship, and the opportunity to help shape Europe's research strategy through collaboration at such a high level is very exciting.'
The other UK member of the Scientific Council is Lord May of Oxford, former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government.
Notes to Editors
1.The full announcement (embargoed 13.30 18 July 2005) from the European Commission is available at http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/05/90&format=HTML&aged=1&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
2.Wendy Hall, CBE, FREng, is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton, UK and is currently Head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS). She was the founding Head of the Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia (IAM) Research Group in ECS. She has published over 300 papers in areas such as hypermedia, multimedia, digital libraries, multi-agent systems and knowledge technologies. She is currently senior Vice President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Immediate Past President of the British Computer Society, a member of the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology, a member of the ACM Council, a member of IW3C2, a member of the Executive Committee of UKCRC and a non-executive Director of several companies and charitable trusts. She was awarded a CBE in 2000, and is a Fellow of the BCS, the IEE, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the City and Guilds of London Institute. A longer biography is available at http://www.ecs.soton.a! c.uk/~wh/