Research & Impact

The School of Computer Science & Informatics has collaborative research arrangements with partners worldwide and this international strength is reflected in its performance in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise.

Of the research submitted, 70% was considered to be in the two highest categories, with 20% in the highest 4* category of world-leading and 50% in the 3* category of internationally excellent.

In terms of the proportion of 4* and 3* research, Computer Science at Cardiff is ranked joint 18th in the UK out of 81 submissions; on this same basis Computer Science is joint 1st in Wales.

Our research is currently organised under 5 main groups, each of which has strong links to user communities. Our work is thus having an impact in a number of areas such as healthcare (including patient record systems and information vsiualisation), the environment (including biodiversity management and geospatial information systems), telecommunications (including communications network design and virtual organisations), engineering design (especially reverse engineering of solid shape), and high-performance and Grid computing (including distributed processing, knowledge management, and immersive visualisation). We have a successful research school of approximately 60 PhD students associated with our research groups.

Much of our research is interdisciplinary, in collaboration with academic schools at Cardiff and other top Universities, across the full spectrum of engineering and physical sciences, biomedical and life sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities. Collaborations include partnerships in the Welsh Assembly Government Research Institute of Visual Computing (RIVC), a Human Factors Technology Centre (CRC), and the Wales Institute of Mathematical and Computational Sciences (WIMCS).

Facilities & Funding

The School hosts one of eight Regional Grid Centres in the UK originally funded under the Government’s e-Science Core Programme and also has a Distributed Immersive Visualisation Facility. This facility complements the GRID Centre and the two are incorporated together under the Welsh e-Science Centre (WeSC). A state of the art Augmented Reality Laboratory has been developed for use in interdisciplinary research.

As expected, at any given point in time the School has a wide range of research projects across its research groups funded by a variety of sponsors, including the US/UK Governments (International Technology Alliance), UK Government (DTI, WAG), Research Councils (BBSRC, EPSRC, PPARC), Europe (EC) and Industry. From time to time we also receive Science Research Investment Fund (SRIF) support. Annual research income currently averages about £2 million.