Wednesday 16 June 1999
Room 6206, JCMB, King's Buildings
The meeting opened at 11am.
Present: Samson Abramsky, Stuart Anderson, Martin Escardo, Mike Fourman, Stephen Gilmore, Paul Jackson, Monika Lekuse, Dyane McGavin (Secretary), Gordon Plotkin, Don Sannella, Alex Simpson, Ian Stark (Chair), Colin Stirling.
It was discussed that room 6206 JCMB isn't a very good venue for the meeting as it is not conducive to discussion because of the way the seating is arranged. It was suggested that room 5210 would be a better venue.
These were discussed and approved.
Some discussion on the reviewing the TPG course and some discussion on the Graduate School's arrangements for advanced courses.
Grant proposal information should be made available within the Division on the Web, but not available to those outside the Division. Colin Stirling suggested that some people may not be happy with their grant proposals being available on the Web. Mike Fourman said people should put their Case for Support or Summary on the Web. LFCS should ask for this information to be carried on the Divisional web server.
LFCS web pages should carry information about funding bodies and grant procedures.
The issue of technical reports on CDRom was to be passed on to Chris Mellish.
LFCS Brochure. To be postponed to next meeting. The general consensus is that we should wait to see what is produced for the Division.
Industrial Links. Ian Stark reported that Gordon Duckett and Alan Bundy say this is a divisional officer responsibility. It was decided that there is a place for division-wide industrial links and a place for LFCS ones. LFCS Lucas Aerospace Link is fine now. Ian Stark to discuss with Gordon Duckett.
Don Sannella announced that following Gordon Duckett's appointment as Division Officer, the Directors had nominated Ian Stark as Deputy Director of LFCS. He noted that as Gordon's transfer had taken much longer than expected, most of the discussion had happened confidentially.
Ian and Monika's duties and the split between these were discussed. Job Description for Ian Stark was required. Ian has produced one which is currently with Gordon Duckett for his comments. It was reported that the Deputy Director appointment is for three years, and that Alan Bundy has agreed to a lessening of teaching load.
Handover to next Director. Don Sannella's three year term as Director was due to expire in April 1999, and he intends to hand it on over the summer. Mike Fourman pointed out that the Divisional constitution might require an election. Don proposed Samson Abramsky for the post, with Mike as seconder. Ian is to find out the constitutional details.
LFCS Budget
Don Sannella circulated LFCS budget information.
Don reported that LFCS is now getting money from the Division. Money has been moved from the Departmental Budget to the Division Budget. There is also other money from Research Overheads. The institute/division split on budgets is extremely unclear and volatile.
There is an LFCS 'small project' budget for one-off support of activities costing up to £5,000. More detailed information should be advertised on the web.
EPSRC. Ian Stark reported that a new draft revision of the programme structure would be available after Friday, 18 June 1999.
Equipment. We have 5 new Linux boxes and this should be enough to provide one machine for every member of staff and PhD student. Colin Stirling asked for one.
Milner lecture. It happened and a video is available. There was an email sent out yesterday, Tuesday, 15 June 1999, asking for suggestions for next year's speaker.
PhD studentships. We will have an LFCS funded PhD student, details as submitted in written report. In addition, Nicola Gambino will be visiting us from Manchester to participate in the TPG next year.
Depending on the budget it may be possible to make another studentship next year and the year after.
Ian Stark distributed the LFCS entry he had placed in the postgraduate prospectus.
Stuart Anderson said that it is possible we may see studentship numbers going up as more monies become available for funding. We could find ourselves with teaching support problems from 2001 onwards.
It was noted that the curriculum meeting does not include the Grad School. Colin Stirling drew this to our attention. It was agreed that the Grad School should be involved. Mike Fourman said this was a policy committee issue and Colin Stirling should deal with this.
Staff and Student Research Travel Budget. Department does not deal with this any more. LFCS will do it. Expecting policy to be the same as that of the Department.
Monika Lekuse presented the grants budget. It currently stands at around 2 million 600 thousand pounds. A few big grants have just fallen out of the system. Some people still need to give Monika final reports. Monika said that some grant proposals in the pipeline, but she didn't want to go into detail in case any of them fell through. The committee requested that information on pending as well as current grants should be presented at the next meeting.
The Divisional version of LFCS mailing lists are very inaccurate. Monika is trying to rectify this.
Martin Escardo distributed details of student results.
These are happening. Grant proposals going in. Most happen because opportunities arise. Joint course may be a good way of interaction.
Frequency of meetings. Should be held termly. This was agreed.
The papers for the meeting are presently only available to members of the research committee. It was agreed that in future we should follow the web publicity procedures of Divisional committees. Due attention must be paid, however, to maintaining the confidentiality of reserved business.
Stuart Anderson brought up that the Directorate was too big. Directorate should be reduced to its original size of four. Some subjects currently discussed at Directorate level should be being discussed at Research Meeting level instead. Don Sannella responded that this has been brought up before, but that it is always too far down on the agenda and is often passed over to be discussed at the next meeting.
The meeting closed at 1pm.