The department of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton has achieved excellent results in the Complete University Guide institutional rankings for 2017, topping the UK tables for graduate prospects in both Electrical & Electronic Engineering and Computer Science.

Electronics & Electrical Engineering retained a top three position – for the eight year running – on a range of criteria that included student satisfaction, graduate job prospects, research, and entry standards. In this table, Southampton shares the top three places with Cambridge and Imperial College London and jointly leads the table for graduate prospects.

In the Computer Science category, ECS again takes the lead for graduate prospects and achieved an increase of two places bringing it to sixth in the table.

Alongside ECS within the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering, Physics and Astronomy moved ahead five places to 14th place.

Professor Bashir M Al-Hashimi, Dean of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering commented: “Continued success in these tables is an excellent achievement. I thank staff across the faculty for their hard work and commitment in delivering such high quality education for our students within the context of world-class research activity. I am particularly proud of our success in the area of graduate prospects. Our students can have confidence that they will benefit from our strong industry connections and continued investment in state of the art facilities to remain in demand by leading high-tech companies for the breadth of their technical understanding.â€?

Engineering across Southampton did well across the board, continuing a run of featuring in the top 10 for Aeronautical, Civil and Mechanical Engineering every year since the Complete University Guide was first published in 2008. Overall, the University of Southampton consolidated its position among the UK’s top 20 universities by placing 17th.

The Complete University Guide – one of three principal UK-based rankings for UK universities – is based on a wide range of criteria including UCAS entry tariffs, student satisfaction, research excellence and intensity, graduate prospects, student-staff ratio, university spending on academic services and facilities, the percentage of first degree graduates achieving a first or upper second class honours degree, and degree completion.

Students from Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton joined the best student hackers from the UK’s 13 Academic Centres of Excellence (ACE) in Cyber Security Research at the inaugural Inter-ACE Cyberchallenge.

The event took place at the University of Cambridge on Saturday 23 April 2016 and was organised in partnership with Facebook. The competing teams of four came from 10 of the 13 Universities accredited as ACEs under the EPSRC/GCHQ scheme: Imperial College, Queens University Belfast, Royal Holloway University of London, University College London, University of Birmingham, University of Cambridge, University of Kent, University of Oxford, University of Southampton, University of Surrey. Challenges were set and administered by Facebook and competing institutions also submitted optional “guest challengesâ€? for others to solve.

The players competed in a ‘Capture the Flag’ information security competition involving both ‘jeopardy’ style and ‘attack-defence’ style aspects. Game progress was visualized on a world map with teams attempting to conquer and re-conquer world countries by solving associated challenges.

The University of Southampton team performed well throughout the competition, leading for the first half and never falling below second for five hours. The decisive final five minutes put Southampton into third place behind the University of Cambridge and Imperial College.

The team was led by Mohit Gupta, a final year student in MEng Electronic Engineering with Artificial Intelligence and also comprised, Yordan Ganchev (final year BSc Computer Science), Murray Colpman (final year MEng Computer Science), and Kier Davis (first year MEng Electronic Engineering with Computer Systems). Mohit was delighted with the result, saying: “While we were disappointed to not get first place, third is still a great achievement for the team and we look forward to improving upon this result in future years. What was really pleasing was the fantastic response when we asked for people to take part in the competition. There were so many people that we ended up running a selection process.â€?

Professor Vladimiro Sassone, Director of the University’s Cyber Security Academy, attended as supervisor. He said: "It was a privilege to witness the excitement, passion and commitment of the players, who worked head down for 5 hours without stops. And of course, I am delighted with our results, which goes to show the quality of the work we are doing at the Cyber Security Academy.â€?

The Inter-ACE Cyberchallenge also featured a competition for individuals from the ACEs. Bronze in this competition also went to a Southampton student, David Young – a final year Maths student who participated remotely.

The International Consortium of Nanotechnologies (ICoN) – led by the University of Southampton and supported by Lloyd’s Register Foundation has announced its first ten PhD studentships - three of which are placed with researchers from Electroincs and Computer Science at Southampton.

Launched in September 2015, ICoN aims to build capacity and knowledge in the application of nanotechnologies to support safety of life and property – addressing issues outlined in Lloyds Register Foundation’s ‘Foresight Review of Nanotechnology’. The doctoral studentships offered by ICoN will explore these issues, focusing on themes such as miniaturisation of sensor technology, big data, engineered smart materials, energy storage and nanoparticles.

The projects led by Southampton are:

• "Single Electron Manipulation in Silicon Nano-Wire for Quantum Technologies" - under the supervision of Professor Shinichi Saito
• "Nano/Micro- Electro-Mechanical-System self-powered sensors for infrastructure safety monitoring" - under the supervision of Dr Jize Yan
• "Ultrafast Nanostructuring of Wide Bandgap SiC for Electronics in Harsh Environments" - under the joint supervision of Professor Kees de Groot and Professor Jamie Phillips of the University of Michigan

The full list of studentships awarded can be found on the LRF ICON website.

Wednesday 12 March 2003 in the Turner Sims Concert Hall (Building 52 on Highfield Campus map)

Twenty-five ThinkPads have been donated to ECS by IBM Hursley, as part of the company"s programme to promote greater use of the Linux operating system. Students at the School of Electronics and Computer Science can apply to take part in a year's exploration into the use of Linux and will win the use of a ThinkPad as part of the project. The aim is to develop a wireless networked community and investigate collaborative working. Head of School, Professor Wendy Hall, said: "This is a very exciting opportunity for the University to work closely with industry to provide and encourage students to use the latest software and mobile computing technologies." Graham Spittle, Lab Director at IBM Hursley, presented the ThinkPads at a ceremony at the School of Electronics and Computer Science. "We are delighted to be part of this innovative project," he said. "Linux is increasingly significant and we want to support creative ways of exploring its future potential. My message to the students is, tell us what you learn, but most of all, have fun.' More than 15 million ThinkPad notebook computers have been produced so far. They have been trusted for use in some of the world's most extreme settings, including space shuttle launches, at altitudes of more than 17,000 feet above sea level and on the open seas.

Currently President of the British Computer Society, one of the world"s leading professional IT bodies, Professor Hall has also recently been appointed to the Council for Science and Technology, the Government's top-level advisory body on science, engineering and technology policy. High on her agenda is the issue of encouraging more women to enter careers in science and IT; she is also keen to address the challenges faced by science education and training. She firmly believes that IT would benefit if a greater number of women were involved in the sector, and is committed to encouraging change. "But there is no easy answer," she says. "We have to tackle the problem at every level because there"s a deeply ingrained culture in the UK that computing is for boys." Only the second woman to hold the office of President in the BCS"s 46-year history, a major part of her presidential year will be devoted to establishing new networks for women and encouraging wider debates about some of the major advances in the world of IT. Professor Hall graduated from the University with a BSc in Mathematics and followed it up three years later with a Southampton PhD. She has been Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton since 1994. She was the founding Head of the Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia (IAM) Research Group in the School of Electronics and Computer Science and her research interests include the development of web technologies, open hypermedia systems and link services, advanced knowledge technologies, digital libraries, multimedia information management, agent-based systems and human computer interaction. Her group developed the open hypermedia system, Microcosm, and she is a director of Active Navigation Ltd, the company through which Microcosm was commercially exploited. The Microcosm software was an ITEA'95 award winner and a BCS IT award winner in 1996. The company now focusses on a commercial version of the dynamic link service for the Web based on IAM's Distributed Link Service project. The commercial product is known as Portal Maximiser. Professor Hall was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list in June 2000. She is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE). In 2002 she was made a Fellow of the City & Guilds of London Institute and was awarded an Honorary DSc by Oxford Brookes University.