Research, Impact & Knowledge Exchange

Published: 31 March 2022

Turing Network Development Award

The University of Glasgow has been awarded one of the first Network Development Awards from The Alan Turing Institute (ATI), the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence.

The award recognises the University’s commitment to collaborative and creative research in data science and artificial intelligence. The network is led by Professor Ana Basiri, School of Geographical & Earth Sciences, and aims to cultivate and promote collaborative, creative, impactful and ethical research in AI to tackle grand challenges, and consolidate the University as a leading institution in data science and AI.

The Network aims to:

Initiate or expand collaborations between researchers, across all Colleges and ATI programmes to create an engaged and diverse community of data science and AI research and innovation.
Map the expertise and strengths at ATI and UoG in key priority areas of national strategic importance in data science and AI.
Identify and establish gaps and overlaps in UoG research with ATI’s priority areas and areas of interest to build capacity and target opportunities for future collaborations.
Build on current collaborations with The Data Lab and The Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA) network, host activities and initiatives open to the wider data science and AI research and innovation community across Scotland.

Networks don’t function without people and the team are very keen to engage with researchers across all disciplines who have an interest in data science in its broadest form, ie research and innovation that can be linked to Data. There is a dedicated Teams channel for anyone interested in participating in the Network - it already has over 200 members. Within that channel there are documents to map areas of expertise.

Professor Ana Basiri, a Professor of Geospatial Data Science and a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, said: “I am delighted to become the University of Glasgow’s Turing Network Development Lead and facilitate the collaboration between the Turing and UofG. This award allows us to work together to do world-changing, impactful, and ethical research in data science and AI to tackle grand challenges and build a better future for all.”

For further information please contact Prof. Ana Basiri (ana.basiri@glasgow.ac.uk) or Dr Neil Findlay (neil.findlay@glasgow.ac.uk).

SICSA and EIT Digital Boost Scottish European Student Exchange Programme

The Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA) have partnered with EIT Digital to deliver on a £75k SFC investment in renewing and strengthening Scottish – European research collaborations.

The Saltire Emerging Researcher Scheme is part of a £6.75m Programme funded by the Scottish Government to support international and EU activity and collaboration including boosting support for international research collaboration and talent attraction, increase scholarship offering to include EU students and support the effective use of alumni globally.

SICSA, in partnership with EIT Digital, has been awarded funding within the Saltire Scheme to reinforce and build new research partnerships while developing individual researchers’ networks with European partners across the Computer Science discipline. The scheme will fully fund incoming and outgoing exchanges of up to six months to both enhance the training experience for PhD Students and support Early Career Researchers in developing their networks and collaborations across Scotland and Europe.

For more information and to apply, see: https://www.sicsa.ac.uk/funding/saltire-emerging-researcher-visits/

Extended Reality Funding for Computing Science

A team of researchers from the School of Computing Science have been awarded funding from the first round of funding through REPHRAIN, a UKRI Research Centre of Excellence focussed on the protection of citizens online. Dr Mark McGill, Dr Mohamed Khamis, Dr Pejman Saeghe and Mr Melvin Abraham will work on PriXR - Protecting Extended Reality (XR) user and bystander privacy by supporting legibility of XR sensing and processing.

PriXR intends to harden Extended Reality (XR) technology against violations of privacy and anonymity, crucially exploring XR not in terms of its benefits to society, but in how society can safely unlock those benefits through supporting resistance against surveillance and misuse and facilitating bystander awareness and consent.

EPSRC – Engineering Net Zero Solutions for a Sustainable Planet Showcase

IMAGE ARC The University will host the Engineering Net Zero Solutions for a Sustainable Planet Showcase in collaboration with the EPSRC in our new Advanced Research Centre from 21st-23rd June 2022. The showcase promises to promote how engineering and physical sciences create today’s opportunities to clean up our natural environment, showing how they are critical to the discovery, development and deployment of net zero solutions to tackle the known and anticipated effects of climate change. The showcase will be truly interdisciplinary and bring together a mix of disciplines across the EPSRC remit and beyond. It will involve UKERC, SUPERGENS, CREDS and the NICER programme, as well as external stakeholders (e.g., Faraday Battery Challenge) from across industry to encourage networking and connect widely with communities through engagement with school children. A highlight will be a live international link-up to the Belmont forum in South Africa for a panel discussion. To frame the event in the context of COP26, the showcase will focus on the following themes:

Built Environment & Resource Efficiency
Our Green Planet
Energy & Net Zero
Transport and Mobility

COP26 took place in November 2021 and provides a platform for this event from the EPSRC, building on outcomes from COP26 and making it truly topical for attendees. As well as seminars, panel discussion sessions and an exhibition of research from EPSRC funded projects, there will be a photographic competition, an impact award aimed at ECRs, and a broad range of activities aimed at wider members of the community. It will be an excellent opportunity to engage with policy makers and key business leaders from across the UK. As host, we will also promote our leading research in this area through content within the exhibition space in the ARC and across the wider campus.

Overall, this promises to be an exciting and innovative showcase that will greatly enhance the profile of the University of Glasgow, our researchers and the ARC. It will provide an excellent opportunity to catalyse research ideas in the net zero community, provoking new initiatives and research directions for our academics across the University and beyond.

Glasgow Research to tackle Net Zero ambitions

In parallel, we will use this opportunity to promote our own research that tackles this challenge. We are looking for research that is funded by EPSRC or within their remit (including EPS collaboration with other disciplines), that tackles the key issues highlighted during COP26, and that is visually interesting, informative and potentially interactive. To support these aims, the College hopes to provide some investment to produce demonstrations that can be used (and reused).

We would like to invite you to contribute to this event as part of the UofG programme. Ideally, we hope to hear from teams of contributors who can cluster their research around a theme or technology. If you would like to hear more about the showcase and get involved, please get in touch with Neil Findlay, Research Development Manager - neil.findlay@glasgow.ac.uk

Assistive Devices Evaluation and Focus Group with Blind and Partially Sighted Community

IMAGE PEPPER The Communication, Sensing and Imaging (CSI) team, led by Prof. Muhammad Imran and Dr Wasim Ahmad, has developed assistive technologies ‘Pepper’ a robot and ‘smart cane’ specially developed to assist blind and partially sighted community to overcome their indoor and outdoor mobility, and shopping issues. Pepper can ‘learn’ the layout of a building, avoid obstacles and even recognise different objects so they can guide a blind person to exactly what they need. The new ‘smart cane’ helps blind and partially sighted people identify obstructions using special onboard sensors and provide tactile feedback to alert them to possible obstacles, including other people.

The CSI group has teamed up with Scotland’s Forth Valley Sensory Centre (FVSC) and The Royal National Institute of Blind (RNIB) to involve the end-users in designing and developing assistive technologies. The first full day evaluation and focus group event was jointly organised by CSI, FVSC, and RNIB, which was held on 26th January this year at the Forth Valley Centre, Camelon, Falkirk, where blind and partially sighted community got a glimpse of assistive robot and smart cane. The event was attended by several blind and partially sighted community and technology experts. Dr Wasim Ahmad and Dr Qammer Abbasi demonstrated both assistive devices to the participants, led a discussion on this technology, and asked about other themes it might be useful to develop.

GALLANT

IMAGE GALLANT The Centre for Sustainable Solutions has partnered with Glasgow City Council on a £10.2 million NERC research programme: GALLANT - Glasgow as a Living Lab Accelerating Novel Transformation. University researchers are helping the city move towards climate resilience whilst tackling health, social and economic inequalities. GALLANT is currently recruiting PhDs, PDRAs and other staff - https://www.gla.ac.uk/gallant