The Prime Minister has re-appointed Professor Dame Wendy Hall to the Council for Science and Technology (CST).
The CST is the Governmentâs top-level advisory body on science, engineering and technology policy and reports directly to the Prime Minister. Professor Hall was appointed to the CST in 2004; her re-appointment, with 12 other members of the Committee, runs until 31 December 2010.
Professor Hall, who was last year elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, was a member of the Advisory Group to a significant report published last week (9 March) by the Royal Society. The Scientific Century: Securing our future prosperity argues that science and innovation should be at the heart of the UKâs long-term strategy for economic growth. Commenting on the report, Professor Hall said: "Investment in science makes you smarter as a nation. If we cut our budgets now we will slip out of the premier league of scientific nations and be the poorer for it."
For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.
PVSAT-6, which will be held from 24 to 26 March 2010 at Chilworth Manor, Southampton, will showcase UK and international developments in photovoltaics and illustrate how solar energy is rapidly becoming as cost effective as grid electricity.
A full and varied programme is promised. Invited speakers include Wim Sinke, ECN, The Netherlands; Chris Wronski, Pennsylvania State University; Ayodhya Tiwari, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology; Thomas Hoffman, Centrosolar Glas, Germany; Ray Noble, Renewable Energy Association; Darren Bagnall, University of Southampton; and Alan Turner of Solarbuzz.
Event organiser, Professor Darren Bagnall of the ECS Nano Research Group, said: "This is an important time for the photovoltaics industry. It has always been an excellent low-carbon method of electricity production, but now, solar energy is rapidly approaching the point where it can compete with grid electricity."
In his talk on Photonics and thin film silicon technologies on 26 March, Professor Bagnall will illustrate how new light-trapping technologies can be used to reduce the thickness of semiconductor materials needed in solar panels, which would directly reduce the cost even further.
The Government today announced the creation of the new Institute for Web Science.
It is designed to make the UK the hub of international research into the next generation of web and internet technologies and their commercialisation, and was announced by the Prime Minister alongside plans for a radical opening up of information and data to put more power in peopleâs hands. The Institute will conduct research, collaborate with businesses, identify opportunities for social and economic benefit, assist in commercialising research and help Government stimulate demand through procurement.
The web was originally a place where people published documents that users could search and pick up. Web 2.0 has enabled users to contribute and create web content more easily. Web 3.0 will take the web to a whole new level by publishing data in a linkable format so that users and developers can see and exploit the relationships between different sets of information.
The development of these technologies will create significant new opportunities for business and the public sector. The impact of these technologies is likely to be as important as the creation of the original web, and could generate large-scale economic benefits for the UK in the global market for web and internet technologies. The role of the Institute will be to undertake research and development, and act as a bridge between research and business, helping commercialise these new technologies. It will also advise Government on how semantic technologies can be used in the public sector, and how public procurement can be used to speed their adoption.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that £30 million would be set aside to create the Institute for Web Science. It will be headed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British inventor of the World Wide Web, and leading Web Science expert Professor Nigel Shadbolt.
âWe want to build on the outstanding work Sir Tim and Nigel Shadbolt have put in to âmaking public data publicâ. We are determined to go further in breaking down the walled garden of Government, using technology and information to provide greater transparency on the workings of Whitehall and give everyone more say over the services they receive.
âThis Institute will help place the UK at the cutting edge of research on the Semantic Web and other emerging web and internet technologies and ensure the Government is taking the right funding decisions to position the UK as a world leader. We will invite universities and private sector web developers and companies to join this collaborative project.â?
The Institute, to be funded through the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, will strengthen the UKâs world-leading capability in the development of semantic web technologies as well as others that enable the extraction of value from information. It will bring together the best minds from around the world to deliver the benefits of advances in web technology to businesses and individuals.
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said:
âBritish innovation brought the web to the world. This Institute will ensure the UK remains at the forefront and that we anticipate and fully exploit the economic and social benefits of future developments.â?
Whether it is to allow our research institutions and innovative businesses to maximise and demonstrate the strength and attractiveness of their networks, or to ensure we make the most of clinical information to improve our understanding of disease, a new web revolution is afoot.
Government support for this Institute as well as early adoption of these emerging technologies in the public sector arena will allow the UK to lead the way and help pull this technology through to the market place.
The Institute for Web Science will be jointly based in the Universities of Oxford and Southampton. It is still subject to contract.
This news release was issued at 12.30 GMT, Monday 22 March by the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.
The Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced £30M of funding to take forward research on the next generation of the World Wide Web.
The funding will create a new Institute for Web Science which will be led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt, Professors in the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, who were appointed Government Information Advisers last June.
Speaking in London today (22 March), the Prime Minister highlighted the importance of Semantic Web and Linked Data technologies: "[The] next generation web is a simple concept, but I believe it has the potential to be just as revolutionary - just as disruptive to existing business and organisational models - as the web was itself [â¦]
"Today I can announce the first funding for the next stage of this research - £30M to support the creation of a new institute, the Institute for Web Science - based here in Britain and working with government and British business to realise the social and economic benefits of advances in the web."
The Prime Minster commented on the work of Professor Berners-Lee and Shadbolt over the last year and emphasized his determination to take this further: "Building on the outstanding work Sir Tim and Nigel Shadbolt who have been leading on âmaking public data publicâ, I can now announce that we are determined to go further in breaking down the walled garden of government, using technology and information to provide greater transparency on the workings of Whitehall and give everyone more say over the services they receive."
The Universities of Southampton and Oxford will partner in the establishment of the new joint Institute for Web Science. (See full text of news announcement.)
Professor Nigel Shadbolt commented: "The Web is one of the most disruptive and transformative innovations we have ever witnessed. We must understand the forces that have shaped it, anticipate its evolution and determine its future social and economic impact. But we must also research a next generation of the Web. The announcement today will allow us to do this in the UK and to ensure that we remain pioneers and world class in this critical area."
He added: "The Institute for Web Science will act as a bridge between research and business, helping commercialise these new technologies. It will also help Government stimulate demand through procurement."
Uniquely, the Institute will foster a community of activist developers who use the next generation of Web standards in a practical context and encourage their adoption in mainstream open source tools. To achieve this, the new Institute will focus on the Semantic Web and Linked Data Technologies.
It will also look at the wider discipline of "Web Science" that creates the ecosystem needed for semantic technologies to be deployed and used effectively. It will have a Web Science orientation where the technology is understood in terms of a wider interplay with societal, economic, legal and other drivers.
Dame Wendy Hall, Professor of Computer Science in the University of Southampton and Director of the Web Science Doctoral Training Centre, said: "On behalf of the Web Science community in Southampton, Oxford and around the world, I congratulate Tim and Nigel on this fantastic achievement. In their work with the UK government over the last year they have demonstrated not only the power and value of linked data for public good, but also the huge potential of the Web in the future.
"When we established Web Science as a research discipline we knew that we were at the beginning of something very exciting. It is wonderful to see that our confidence is now shared in the Government and public sector, and in business. This is a great day and we look forward to the future!"
Professors Berners-Lee, Hall and Shadbolt are all Founding Programme Directors and Trustees of the Web Science Trust, launched last year to foster education and research in Web Science.
Professor Don Nutbeam, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southampton, commented: âI am delighted that Southampton will play such a fundamental role in shaping the next-generation technologies and capabilities of the World Wide Web. I congratulate Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt for their recent work which has demonstrated the transformational power of the Web in delivering data and information which is of real value.
"This new role will build on Southampton's established world-class research and expertise in Web Science. We now look forward to working with universities and business around the world as we take this research initiative forward.â
For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.
As the University joins institutions and individuals worldwide to switch off lights and appliances during Earth Hour, researchers in the School of Electronics and Computer Science will be using their new GridCarbon iPhone app to see just how much carbon has been saved.
Earth Hour, organized by the WWF, takes place this year on Saturday 27 March at 8.30 pm GMT. WWF are aiming for one billion people worldwide to switch off their lights for an hour in support of people, wildlife, and habitats threatened by climate change. The University of Southampton is encouraging staff and students to switch off all unnecessary electrical appliances at both the machineâs switch and, if safe and accessible, at the mains socket before leaving work on Friday 26 March 2010. The University's web site explains: 'This will make a difference for the whole of the Earth Hour weekend.'
Electricity is produced from different raw materials which each create various levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions; with coal creating the most CO2 emissions and renewable energies creating the least. Gas is predominantly used to produce electricity in the UK but when demand exceeds the supply capabilities of the gas fired power stations, coal powered stations are employed to maintain the electricity supply. This means that the carbon intensity of the grid - the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere when one unit (1 kWh) of electricity is used by a consumer - varies continuously over each day and throughout the year.
Earlier this year researchers in ECS launched a new iPhone application which monitors the UK electricity grid. Dr Alex Rogers, Dr Perukrishnen Vytelingum and Professor Nick Jennings developed 'GridCarbon', which enables users to monitor the carbon intensity of the grid â the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere when one unit (1 kWh) of electricity is used by a consumer.
âThe GridCarbon app (download from iTunes) shows people how using appliances and machinery at different times of the day can reduce their carbon footprint; for example, at some times of the year, running washing machines and dishwashers overnight rather than at peak times in the evening, can reduce carbon emissions by as much as 40 per cent,â? said Dr Rogers. âWhile developing this app, we were surprised at how much the carbon intensity of the grid varies at different times of the day, and between different days in the week.â?
Dr Rogers has developed live meters that are currently running in three buildings in the School of Electronics and Computer Science: Zepler Building; Mountbatten Building; and Building 32.
GridCarbon is just one initiative being developed by ECS researchers as they develop a vision of the Smart Grid. They are currently researching the use of computerised agents to operate smart electricity meters in support of the Governmentâs initiative to have smart meters in all homes by 2020, and are using a new building on the Southampton campus as a test bed. The Ideas Project web site has more information.
DON'T FORGET - switch off for Earth Hour!!! 8.30 pm Saturday 27 March ...
This year's System Design Exercise (âD4â), sponsored by Detica, presented a particularly testing challenge to second-year Electronics students.
Working in teams against the scenario that they were part of a small electronic consultancy firm, the students asked to design a portable Mixed Signal Oscilloscope, and to build a working prototype in 11 days. Criteria on which the product was to be judged included features, performance, price, aesthetics, and innovation.
The teams were given precise specifications, for example, the device had to feature 8 digital channels and 1 analogue, have a graphical display, be portable and robust, and able to operate in the field. At the end of the 11 days, the teams had to make a competitive pitch for their design in front of the judges and their classmates.
The competition was sponsored by Detica, and Dr Matt Sacker of the Detica Electronic Systems Group and an alumnus of the School of Electronics and Computer Science, was one of the judges.
Pressure on the students was intense as they worked round the clock to design their oscilloscopes and build a prototype while handling other module deadlines.
âThe D4 exercise is all about translating the skills and knowledge learnt from the course into a practical design exercise, and therefore having industrial input and support in this process is invaluable,â said Dr Geoff Merrett, one of the course leaders.
âAs an ECS alumnus (both undergraduate and postgraduate!), Matt is in a perfect position to explain the challenges and relevance of applying the skills and knowledge he learnt at University to his subsequent career.
âMatt has fond memories of the D4 exercise from when he was an undergraduate and, during his presentation to the students at the final âtrade fairâ?, was able to explain how the lessons that teams learnt in both project management and âdesign-and-buildâ? electronics will directly apply to their future careers.â
The winning team members were: Tristan Bogle, Avadhi de Costa Tom Dell, Adam Malpass, Bekki Robinson, and Miraj Wanaguru, and each received £100 from Detica for their prize. Course leaders were Professor Steve Gunn, Dr Geoff Merrett and Dr Rob Maunder, with support from Tim Forcer, Jeff Hooker and Dave Oakley.
Read Adam Malpassâs blog: âThe most intense few weeks of my University life â¦â
For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel. +44(0)23 8059 5453
ECS Electronics student Adam Malpass has won a prestigious Advanced Leadership Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering.
The Award is part of the Royal Academy of Engineeringâs Best (Better engineering, science, technology) Programme, which aims to ârecruit, train and retain the brightest and most motivated young people into and within the engineering professionâ. The Programme also aims to build partnerships between industry and education, and to provide education and training opportunities that students can access throughout their university careers.
Adam received the Award after a testing interview weekend in which he and other finalists in the application process were put through a series of challenges. He is now able to access £5000 of funding over the next three years of his MEng degree programme towards professional development. Writing in his ECS blog, Adam says that he will definitely be visiting Japan: âHopefully next summer I will get the chance to take an intensive language course in Japan, followed by a period working for some of the best research and development companies in the world! Iâve always wanted to go there, and so the fact that is it now tantalisingly close to becoming a reality is just fantastic!â?
Adam, who comes from Buckinghamshire, has achieved outstanding results in his academic work in the School of Electronics and Computer Science, but also plays in the Southampton University Jazz Orchestra (SUJO), and is a member of the Student Robotics group, which organizes an annual challenge for A level students in local schools and colleges. He has also contributed to the ECS students blogs since he joined the School in October 2008.
With this Award already in place, Adam will be travelling to London this Friday (16 April) to attend the Target Student of the Year Awards, where he is through to the final stages of the competition for Undergraduate of the Year.
Professor Harvey Rutt, Head of School, said: âMany congratulations to Adam. This is a highly prestigious award and reflects great credit not only on Adam but also but on the School of Electronics and Computer Science. We are delighted to share in his success.â
The final showdown for this yearâs Student Robotics challenge takes place tomorrow (Saturday 17 April) at the University of Southampton.
For the last eight months young engineers in Hampshire schools and colleges have been designing, building and programming autonomous robots which will compete against each other in the grand finals. The college students, working in teams of six, have been mentored and supported by students from the University of Southampton who have organized this very successful competition for the third year running.
The challenge for the college students is to build robots that are programmed to complete a task. To do this successfully the students are encouraged to produce robots which are sophisticated, capable of programmed movement to perform set tasks, able to âseeâ, and make best use of their own artificial intelligence.
The University students design, build and develop all of the electronics themselves, ensuring that the competing sixth forms and colleges have custom-hardware tailored to their precise needs. Over the last two years of the competition the University students have managed to produce an electronics kit that provides lots of functionality but with the flexibility for the college teams to experiment and develop their own solutions. Each college team receives a weekly visit from a University student â many of them from the School of Electronics and Computer Science, to help them get their robot into shape for the grand final.
'The organization and running of this activity is carried out solely by our students themselves,' said Professor Harvey Rutt, Head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science. 'We applaud their commitment to this event since it provides the sixth-form students with the chance to work on a real engineering problem, valuably supplementing their A level studies. Our students are able to develop valuable skills such as project management, team work and group development, which is very beneficial to their future careers.'
This yearâs event will be contested by teams from Taunton's College, Southampton City College, St Anne's School Southampton, Brockenhurst College, Alton College, Peter Symonds College Winchester, Ringwood School, Bishop Wordsworth's College, Salisbury, Churcher's College, Bedales School, and the Sixth Form College, Farnborough, and takes place in The Cube, Students' Union, Highfield Campus, from 10 am to 4.30 pm. The robots compete against each other in a specially designed arena and gain points for their success in completing a number of tasks. The prizegiving takes place at 4 pm, with prizes being awarded by Professor Harvey Rutt.
Student Robotics is sponsored by the Motorola Foundation, austriamicrosystem, the University of Southampton and Student Community Action.
For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.
Researchers at the University of Southampton expect to have sensor probes which can predict the onset of landslides, by the end of this year.
Dr Kirk Martinez at the Universityâs School of Electronics and Computer Science and Professor Jane Hart in Geography have been funded by the US-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to develop fist-sized sensors to monitor erosion rates during Californiaâs storm season.
The fist-sized sensors have been placed in Los Laureles Canyon in Mexico, an area which is constantly under water due to torrential rain and mud slides.
âNobody has ever tried putting radio-based sensors into slopes before,â? said Dr Martinez. âWe are very close to having a miniaturised version that measures light, conductivity and tilt.â?
A total of six sensors have been placed upstream from the Tijuana estuary, which is just over the Mexican border in San Diego. The probes take a reading every hour monitoring factors such as temperature and movement.
âOur challenge now is to get them measuring more and to have them really wake up when a storm is predicted,â? said Dr Martinez, who first developed sensor probes to monitor glacier movements in 2003.
âWe are already getting very good signs that we are getting a sense of the changes in sediment and soil through the sensors; the next move is trying to predict when things begin to change so that people living nearby can have early warnings of storms and landslides,â? he added.
According to the researchers, these sensors will be suitable to predict sudden landslides, particularly common in India and Asia and which cause mass devastation, claiming hundreds of lives and leaving millions homeless. They could also be used to predict flooding in the UK.
See media coverage in The Guardian on this project.
For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.
The impact of the cloud of ash over the UK has underlined how important it is for scientists to gain a better understanding of the complex relationships that exist between socio-technological and geophysical systems that operate at the scale of countries and continents.
"The difficulty at the moment is that no one can accurately measure the concentration of ash in the atmosphere on a large scale," says Dr Hans Fangohr, Head of the Universityâs Computational Modelling Group. "This is why we need to develop new ways to simulate the scenario so that we can better understand the spread of dispersed particles, such as volcano ash, in the atmosphere."
The ICSSâs incoming cohort of 20 Complex Systems Simulation PhD students will use the University's new supercomputer, which is among the 25 fastest university machines in the world, to model complicated turbulent air flow, amongst other things, when they begin their studies later this year.
By combining research expertise from engineering, Earth sciences, remote sensing and oceanography, their research has the potential to devise methods to improve predictions of the concentration of pollutants in the air, thus enabling key decision makers to determine levels of risk with greater reliability and efficiency.
"At the moment, the only way that it would be possible to measure the concentration of ash in the atmosphere systematically is to send out thousands of aircraft and fly them through the clouds taking measurements, which is obviously not possible," says Dr Fangohr. "Our investment in complex systems simulation and our cohort of students will work to make these predictions better in the future, thus ensuring safety and minimising cost and disruption."
Last year, the ICSS welcomed its first 21 PhD students and is now in the process of recruiting its second cohort.
"What strikes me about our students is their quality and the diversity of their interests," says Dr Seth Bullock, Head of the Science and Engineering of Natural Systems Group at the School of Electronics and Computer Science, and a Director of the ICSS.
Current students are set to use the new supercomputer to carry out simulations ranging from synthetic biology and neuroscience, through transportation and power networks, to glaciation and ocean processes, with one-third of them modelling some kind of evolutionary, ecological or environmental scenario.
The second cohort of ICSS PhD students is expected to be similarly diverse, and will tackle a newly expanded set of research domains, including socio-economic modelling of business, finance, and society.
"We want to help students tackle modelling problems with relevance to the real social world," says Dr Bullock. "We are also seeing increasing interest in bionanotechnology as researchers look towards the construction of molecular machines and improved understanding of how drugs interact with living systems. The Southampton supercomputer will enable us to build and explore new models of these kinds of complex systems."
For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.