Research Committee Meeting

Wednesday 17 November 1999
Room 2511, JCMB, King's Buildings

Minutes

The meeting opened at 2pm.

Present: Samson Abramsky, Julian Bradfield, Rod Burstall, Mike Fourman, Martin Hofmann, Mark Jerrum, Roni Khardon, Monika Lekuse, Dyane McGavin (Secretary), Gordon Plotkin, Don Sannella, Perdita Stevens, Alex Simpson, Ian Stark (Chair), Colin Stirling.

Apologies for absence were received from Paul Jackson and Jane Hillston.

1. Minutes of the previous meeting

1. Grant proposal information. Ian has asked Tim Colles to make this information available on the Web, with no response yet.

2. Industry links. Greg O'Shea from Microsoft is coming to visit the Division. We should try to organise a Lab Lunch for when he comes.
   ACTION: Ian Stark to speak to Stuart Anderson

3. Handover to next Director. Since the last meeting, Samson has been elected and started his term as LFCS Director.

4. LFCS small project budget. Information on this is available on the LFCS web site, at http://www.lfcs.informatics.ed.ac.uk/funding/small-projects.html.

5. Graduate School presence on the Division curriculum meeting. Colin reported that this has been sorted out, and the curriculum meeting does now include a graduate school representative.

6. LFCS mailing lists. Monika is still working on this.
   ACTION: Monika Lekuse

7. Divisional software support. Ian has submitted a formal request to the computing committee, to be considered at its meeting on 14th December.

2. Director's report

1. LFCS organisational structure. Samson noted the aim of the Division that institutes should be administratively light and intellectually heavy; nevertheless, it is important to have a proper forum for discussion of issues. He presented his ideas on the structure of a new Director's Meeting to replace the current LFCS Directorate, and a remit for the continuing Research Committee. There was some discussion over the composition of these groups, their aims and responsibilities. In particular, the remit of the research committee should explicitly include oversight of the Theory Postgraduate Course. The meeting agreed that we should proceed with Samson's proposals.
   ACTION: Ian Stark

2. Finance. Samson reported from the General Meeting last week that the Division had some financial difficulties, deriving in part from the Faculty. This would probably have some effect on the LFCS cash budget.

   For some years now, LFCS has been able to carry over any accumulated reserves in the budget. The mechanism for this is to change, and will require a decision each year on what money to spend and what to save for the future.

3. Research themes. The Division is preparing for the next Research Assessment Exercise, and it is in some ways proving difficult to present a coherent image of "what we do" in Informatics. For LFCS's part, we should revisit the research themes and the way the Laboratory presents its research to the outside world. Gordon explained the original collective process by which the themes had been selected, and it was suggested that it was now appropriate to repeat this.
   ACTION: Samson Abramsky and Ian Stark

   There will be an Institute review process next May, or perhaps earlier The Research Advisory Committee meeting this week will be discussing details of how this will work. Samson read out some questions sent out by Alan Bundy for people to consider, to help them think about Institute reviews. LFCS will have to present some kind of review document as part of the process, and it was proposed that this be combined with the re-theming mentioned earlier.

   ACTION: Samson Abramsky and Ian Stark

4. Building. The proposed single site for Informatics is apparently no longer considered feasible; the favoured Division plan is to press on with two sites, with a new building in the North. The meeting discussed whether an Informatics South building should be considered along with the Informatics North building. Ian reported a request from John Butler asking if anyone would be interested in pursuing the idea of an Informatics South building. Perdita and Samson said they would be interested, if a realistic opportunity arose.

   Alex raised the subject of LFCS's long-term future in North or South. Should it be between the two sites? It was important to consider how this related to teaching, and movement of both lecturers and students. Ian suggested that this be put on the agenda for the next meeting.

   ACTION: Ian Stark

5. Samson reported that he had offered to organise a Divisional workshop under the title "Processes and Events", to be hosted by LFCS.
   ACTION: Samson Abramsky

3. Deputy Director's report

1. Ian distributed the minutes of the last Directors' Meeting, which included a number of relevant items. He reported on the new LFCS website, and said that he had requested facilities for an MBONE trial of video seminars from the computing executive group. A job description for the Deputy Director's post is now available.

2. Grant Portfolio. LFCS today holds £K 2,131 in grants, at a rate of £K 631 per year. This employs 13 research staff and 3 research students. It comprises 18 separate grants with a mean duration of 38 months and value of £K 118.

3. People. LFCS members currently include the full-time equivalents of 17 academic staff, 13 research staff, and 23 research students.

4. Postgraduate training

The Graduate School now has a policy on specialist skills training, transferrable skills training, and tracking thesis progress. There is further documentation available. This has come from a desire to bring together ideas from all three Schools in the Division.

5. Library issues

1. Journals. Library funding is becoming tight, and the library committee is looking over journal subscriptions, with a view to modifying them for next year. They need feedback from institutes and individuals by May 2000; everyone is invited to peruse the list of current subscriptions online. Ian proposed that this should be discussed more fully at the next meeting, when people have had a chance to go through this list.
   ACTION: Jane Hillston to bring to next meeting

2. Electronic journals. The librarians are interested to know our feelings on replacing paper journal subscriptions with electronic ones. Various people said that reliable electronic versions were well worth having, and clearly the way to go. There was some concern about archiving, but no special attachment to paper copies as opposed to CD-ROMs.

3. IEEE/IEE electronic library. This is desirable but very expensive, and no-one wished to spend any of the LFCS cash budget on it. We would support the library committee if it were to contribute divisional money toward this.

6. Poly/ML

7. Any other business

Gordon raised the issue of best practice in employing research staff. He intends to propose to the Research Advisory Committee that all research staff be appraised, as already happens in AIAI and HCRC. The meeting approved of this. Samson asked if there were any guidelines on how to do this, and whether all institutes would be working to a common scheme. Gordon responded that this was the kind of issue the Research Advisory Committee would address.

The meeting closed at 3.40pm