SCHOOL MATHEMATICS, COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

RESEARCH & ENTERPRISE COMMITTEE MEETING

Minutes of Meeting No. 18

Held on Wednesday 28 June 2017At: 14:00-16:00pm - Room C103

Name of Member 28.9.16 30.11.16 25.1.17 29.3.17 17.5.17 28.6.17Research Comm Members P A P A P A P A P A P AProf P Kyriacou (Chair) x x x x x xProf R Crouch x x x x x xProf N Karcanias x x x x x xProf A Fring x x x x x xProf T Sun x x x x x xProf Lorenzo Strigini x x x x x xProf George Spanoudakis x x x x x xProf Qingwei Ma x x x xProf Jason Dykes x x x x x xProf Jo Wood x x x x x xProf John Carlton x x x x x xProf Andreas Kappos x x x x xDr YouYou Yan x x x x x xDr Talal Ous x x x x x xDr Stephanie Wilson x x x x x xDr Simone Stumpf x x x x x xDr Andrew McNamara x x x x x xProf Artur Garcez x x x x x xProf Ahmed Kovacevic x x x xProf Manolis Gavaises x x x xProf David Bawden x x x xDr Lyn Robinson x x x xProf Alfredo Pinelli x xEva Kalyvianaki (for GS) x xProf Jamshid Nouri (for MG) x xDr Sumsun Naher (for AK) xDr Matthew Read (for AK) x xDr Agathoklis Giaralis (for AKappos) xProf David Stupples (for NK) x xDr Aidan Slingsby (for (JW/JD) xDr Feng Fu (for QM) xMrs Gill Smith (Secretary) x x x x x x

1. Apologies for Absence

Apologies are noted as above.

2. Minutes of the last meeting of Research & Enterprise committee

It was noted that Prof Pinelli had attended the meeting on 17 May 2017 which was not recorded.

3. Completed Actions Arising from the 17 May 2017 Meeting:

Actions Responsibility Comment

REF completion rules requested by PK to Andrew Jones

PK Discussed under Item 5

Add D Stupples and G Halikias to members list in the absence of N Karcanias

GS Done

PK said he had submitted a spreadsheet to the Research and Enterprise office for potential impact cases and the stages that are in which had had a positive response. TO said he would invite all Heads of Centre’s to come to a meeting to discuss impact cases. It was noted that all the interdisciplinary proposal submitted to the university are still with the Vice President research and still waiting for feedback. TO to send a list of impact cases to Heads of Centre’s to discuss and bring back to a meeting in late September. JW suggested a mechanism in which new impact cases are considered. PK said early in the autumn the new round of HEIF money would be available and this could be used towards impact cases therefore an early indication of how we would spend it is needed as the money would need to be spent by July 2018.

4. Chairs Report

Andrew Jones circulated some news to Deans and Associate Deans for Research regarding EPSRC that the University will be invited to join the strategic network and had been upgraded to the corresponding group which will be involved in a quarterly teleconferencing meeting and will be able to discuss EPSRC initiatives. PK has been advised that the next DTP call will be early next year. TO to find out what is needed to not be “blacklisted” for Industrial Case Studies as we were not able to apply for EPSRC funding for PhD studies due to “blacklisting”.

Andrew Jones had sent an email which asked that staff be encouraged to acquire an ORCHID ID which will enable staff to prepare for the next REF which will identify across many systems. PK will send this email to all staff.

Of the five PhD studentships that were advertised two went to Mathematics and three shared between Computer Science and Engineering.

PK reported that he would be having a meeting with Hafiza and Razina regarding the budget as there is no slack towards committed support which is not in the budget.

PK had provided four papers showing PhD completion rates, the first one showing numbers of students and their completion rates. It was noted that the normal registration period for full time students is four years and this ends once the thesis is submitted. The second paper is a landscape of students 2009 – 2017, the third one shows completions from 2013 – 2016 split into engineering, computer science and mathematics. PK said he needs the help of the STR’s to help students and supervisors to complete better, at the moment we are too tolerant. JW said that an area of concern is the delays in examiners taking their time in approving corrections or defining what the corrections need to be following a viva. JW said he was involved with a disciplinary case and he said there would be a formal recommendation that the primary

supervisor should be employed at City for 60% of their time, we cannot have retiring academics who have left supervising. Page four shows PhD projections for REF2021 which has been sent to the President. SW said there was a need to increase the number of students joining to get to these numbers.

JW said there was a call for a Leverhulme Doctoral Training Centre, only one submission is allowed per University, the rules within City were that each School could forward up to two nominations. A joint submission by JW and SASS has been submitted by the University and if successful will give us 20 PhD students. There was only one bid from the School and JW felt we should look more thoroughly at bids like this.

5. REF 2021PK asked TO to check when the guidelines for REF 2021 will be out, possibly at the end of July.

6. Research Grant ActivitiesTO said that there had been issues with the online research database and therefore there was not a paper provided. TO congratulated PK and his team on his successful EPSRC submission which was worth almost £800k.

Over the last month there had been a lot of submissions to Innovate UK of which 2 had been successful. In the last week there had been five submissions.

The Research Management System will hopefully be approved by the end of July and up and running by April 2018. TO will provide training for the system to academics with a workshop.

There will be calls for Horizon 2020 in August.

7. City Research Online CRO

TO provided the monthly report from CRO for May 2017 showing SMCSE as the highest for uploading our data. It was noted that the President wanted everything uploaded as full text because this contributes to citations and REF.

8. Health & Safety

Nothing major happening in relation to compliance apart from an outstanding matter in the Biomedical Engineering lab. Foam extinguishers have not been checked for some time and this has been flagged with PAF.

9. Research Student Management

At the Research Student Committee meeting students raised an IT issue, they were still treated as students and not staff and therefore had to go through their supervisor to report any problems, their status is an issue.

It was felt PhD students should be invited to Research Centre meetings.

There will be workshops for PhD students to go through processes followed by a thesis competition and a party, PK asked staff to please attend the party and mingle with the students.

SW said the PhD students were upset that they hadn’t been invited to the SMCSE summer part for staff and also the Xmas party.

PK said IT had sent him an email about PhD profiles on the web which he would circulate.

YY said the annual progress review needed to be completed by the end of July.

LS reported on the 1st meeting of the University's Research Governance & Integrity Committee, in which he represents the School. The Committee's brief covers a broad range from processes for investigating serious research misconduct to much more mundane matters. Likely initial priorities include trying to improve guidance for PhD students and junior researchers at induction, processes for advice about research ethics, processes for safeguarding experimental data. The committee will try to compare practices across Schools and help adopt best practices. Its brief has immediate relevance for the activities of the senior tutors for research, and at some stage of all in the research committee. LS will report to the research committee as activities develop, and asks for any inputs the members would wish to give to the Research Governance & Integrity Committee.

Matters Arising from RCs

Nothing was raised.

10. University Research & Enterprise OfficePK asked that someone could early next year report on the new structure of the Research & Enterprise office. TO said that he would do a presentation. The new Business Development Manager for the School is Graham Dransfield.

There is a new AGC FEC form, old ones should not be used.

Dilly will be in contact about next year’s Research & Enterprise development training.

AOB

Matthew Read reported that the Compressor Centre Conference will take place between be 11 -13 September 2017 at City and as part of that there will be a tour of some of the test cells including presentation of posters. He invited all research centres to showcase their labs or present any posters in the tour. They can contact Ahmed Kovacevic if they are interested.

ACTION TABLE

Arising from 28 June 2017 Meeting:

Actions Responsibility CommentSteph to receive further clarity on Off Campus Study.

SW ongoing

Arrange meeting to discuss Impact Cases PK Arrange meeting date -ongoing

Arrange EPSRC workshop for Computer Science

TO Arrange date and circulate – ongoing

TO to send a list of impact cases to HoD’s for input and arrange a meeting in late September to discuss further.

TO Circulate list and arrange meeting with HoD’s

TO to find out how to get Industrial Case funding from EPSRC again

TO TO to contact EPSRC

PK to forward email explaining how to get and ORCHID ID

PK PK to send email to all staff

PK to have a meeting with Hafiza Patel to discuss the budget.

PK PK meet with Hafiza Patel

TO to check when the guidelines for REF would be out

TO

PK to circulate email from IT about PhD profiles on the web

PK

All any inputs for the Research Governance & Integrity Committee to be forwarded to LS

ALL