In 2017, the School of Computing celebrated its 60th anniversary, making it one of the longest established schools in the UK. Browse this guide to find out more about their history.
School of Computing at 60
Originally created to provide computing support to researchers, in this new, fast moving field, education was essential. This led quickly to the introduction of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.
Sixty years on, its recognised expertise and collaborations means the school is well placed to continue innovating. As well as exploring emerging disciplines such as cloud computing, cyber-physical systems and synthetic biology, the School is investigating new applications such as fin-tech, agriculture, medicine, and sustainability.
Find out about the history of the School of Computing’s on their website and look at the timeline of Computing at Newcastle University.
Research Centres
The Centre for Software Reliability (CSR) was established in March 1984. Its original aim was to provide an operating base for the national CSR group. This was in collaboration with City University, London. The group provided a focus for initiatives addressing issues pertinent to the reliability of software.
The Alvey and ESPRIT initiatives were strongly oriented towards fostering collaboration between industrial and academic workers in the field of software engineering. This perspective has always influenced CSR's mode of working.
Its main areas of research are
- advanced system architectures
- adaptive software architectures for control systems
- applying game theory to guide trade-offs
- hybrid systems theory
- diversity in the design of critical systems
- requirements representation, evolution, traceability and analysis
- formal methods and techniques for analysing timing properties
- software safety analysis and information structures for safety cases
- brokerage for electronic commerce
- organisation and enterprise modelling
Find out more about CSR at City University.
Photo by Andrew Curtis
The expertise of the Digital Institute lies in Cloud Computing & Data Analytics which are applied to extract knowledge from the vast amounts of data now being collected in all research fields and industrial sectors. They aim to disseminate research information: documenting and publicising work from across the University, create and support multi-disciplinary collaborations and act as a front-door for potential collaborators, both internal and external.
Research Groups
Modern computing systems are mobile, networked, and highly concurrent which makes them risky to develop, especially when we trust these systems with our money, resources, businesses or lives. Building abstract models of computing systems makes it possible to design better systems. Such models provide a basis to reason about the correctness of designs and allow exploring alternatives.
AMBER aims to help contain risk by equipping engineers with effective methods and tools that allow them to explore, verify and refine the properties of such complex systems.
The Interdisciplinary Computing and Complex BioSystems (ICOS) group carries out research at the interface of computing science and complex biological systems, with interdisciplinary expertise in machine intelligence, complex systems and computational biology.
Visit their website to learn more.
Established in 2008, Open Lab is an interaction design and ubiquitous computing research group. Their work focuses on the experience-centred design of digital technology and applied challenges in ubiquitous computing. Particular expertise lies in the configuration and conduct of cross-disciplinary research and application of digital technologies to real-world problems ranging from health and social care, to the creative industries, education, and local democracy. At the heart of their research is a commitment to the experience-centred and participatory design of digital technologies that enhance rather than diminish our experience of the world.
The work of the group ranges from scalable cloud computing and big data analytics, to video game technologies and green computing, working closely with local and global IT companies. They host the EPSRC Doctoral Training Centre in Cloud Computing for Big Data, training the next generation of experts in the analysis of "big data" using advanced statistical methodologies and the latest cloud computing technologies, addressing an acute worldwide skills shortage.
The group’s research contributes to creating modern information systems, networks and infrastructures, focusing on cyber security and computer systems resilience. They are part of the NCSC Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security at Newcastle University.
Cyber security depends on people, as well as systems, so their work spans many fields. They work with psychologists, civil engineers, mathematicians, industry partners and users of systems and discover new attacks, invent technologies and investigate human factors.
Their research has gained substantial media coverage, including their research into credit card fraud which has been reported by the BBC.
The Teaching Innovation Group encourages and fosters innovation in teaching with wide-reaching and varied activities.