AI, modelling , data science and digitilisation are hot topics because they are emerging from academic research into applications. This will affect funding-bodies' decisions but there is no reason to think that it will lead to reduced funding for related fundamental research. It would make more sense to leave it to the staff to see who can continue to attract funding and good students.
S
Susanne Albers
5 years ago
The research group on Theoretical Computer Science must continue at Leicester!
P
Paul Blain Levy
5 years ago
I am really saddened about the proposal to wreck the computer science (and mathematics) departments at Leicester. If this is carried out, it will destroy the University's reputation, deter students, and certainly will not lead to high quality research in AI (which builds, and will continue to build, on research that is "highly theoretical and not directly linked to applications"). Please do not do this, it is terrible.
G
Gregory Gutin
5 years ago
One day all or some of AI, data science, and computational modelling will become less trendy. Will then people will be fired again? Who would want to join UoL then unless for a short while? If universities do not do foundational research, who will? Certainly, not the vast majority of companies. My experience shows that from time to time practitioners really need foundational results. Who'll obtain them and pass their knowledge to practitioners?
D
David Sterratt
5 years ago
University Teacher, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
I am concerned that the breadth and depth of teaching would suffer. Although modern, fully-featured programming languages make programming easier to learn than it used to be, they also make it easier to write code that is inefficient, due to not understanding the algorithms being run and constraints of computer architecture. Students need to understand the fundamental transferable knowledge.
J
Jonathan Ben-Artzi
5 years ago
Reader in Mathematics, Cardiff University
This is very short sighted. If implemented, it is a decision that will surely have to be reveresed in a few years.
K
Ken Friis Larsen
5 years ago
Associate professor at Department of Computer Science. University of Copenhagen.
I
Ivan Tyukin
5 years ago
Foundations of Computer Science are at the core of AI as we know it today
P
PAUL DUNNE
5 years ago
What about streamlining the Management Team instead? If they're that myopic I don't think it would be much of a loss.
N
Naoki Kobayashi
5 years ago
Professor, The University of Tokyo
A
Andreas Nuyts
5 years ago
Mathematician, postdoctoral researcher in CS, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
L
Lorenzo Gheri
5 years ago
Foundational research plays a key role towards a better society. It pushes our collective knowledge forward, it allows for a better understanding of the world, it provides solid bases for applications and inspires them, and, very often, over time, it survives such particular applications.
Universities should make knowledge widely available to the public, spread it through society in its more advanced and different forms.
The proposed strategy by the University of Leicester is saddening, short-sighted and would damage the whole community around it.
E
Emilio Tuosto
5 years ago
Associate professor at GSSI and former associate professor at University of Leicester.
UoL, once again, blindly bets on some areas of our discipline at detriment of the ones where a department has shown international leadership. This "strategy" has been already tried recently at UoL and it has shown all its limits: weakening a department makes it less attractive and demotivates potential good candidates. A management team that aims to invest in a new area of computer science should do so without weakening the areas in which the department excels.
P
Pinchinat Sophie
5 years ago
Algorithm design and analysis,
logic in computer science, foundations of software science, programming
languages, concurrent systems, and testing and verification are areas that must be supported for being of uttermost importance in sciences.
T
Trevor Fenner
5 years ago
Wrong-headed and short-sighted.
W
Wim Vanderbauwhede
5 years ago
Professor in Computing Science, University of Glasgow
This is incredibly shortsighted. Every aspect of CS is built on those foundations. Much of the progress in the application domain is are result of theoretical research.
R
Renlord Yang
5 years ago
How is it possible for AI/ML to exist without advancements in the foundations of computer science?
K
Keigo Imai
5 years ago
Assistant Professor at Gifu University, Japan
M
Martin Kleppmann
5 years ago
Senior Research Associate, University of Cambridge
AI, modelling , data science and digitilisation are hot topics because they are emerging from academic research into applications. This will affect funding-bodies' decisions but there is no reason to think that it will lead to reduced funding for related fundamental research. It would make more sense to leave it to the staff to see who can continue to attract funding and good students.
The research group on Theoretical Computer Science must continue at Leicester!
I am really saddened about the proposal to wreck the computer science (and mathematics) departments at Leicester. If this is carried out, it will destroy the University's reputation, deter students, and certainly will not lead to high quality research in AI (which builds, and will continue to build, on research that is "highly theoretical and not directly linked to applications"). Please do not do this, it is terrible.
One day all or some of AI, data science, and computational modelling will become less trendy. Will then people will be fired again? Who would want to join UoL then unless for a short while? If universities do not do foundational research, who will? Certainly, not the vast majority of companies. My experience shows that from time to time practitioners really need foundational results. Who'll obtain them and pass their knowledge to practitioners?
University Teacher, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh I am concerned that the breadth and depth of teaching would suffer. Although modern, fully-featured programming languages make programming easier to learn than it used to be, they also make it easier to write code that is inefficient, due to not understanding the algorithms being run and constraints of computer architecture. Students need to understand the fundamental transferable knowledge.
Reader in Mathematics, Cardiff University This is very short sighted. If implemented, it is a decision that will surely have to be reveresed in a few years.
Associate professor at Department of Computer Science. University of Copenhagen.
Foundations of Computer Science are at the core of AI as we know it today
What about streamlining the Management Team instead? If they're that myopic I don't think it would be much of a loss.
Professor, The University of Tokyo
Mathematician, postdoctoral researcher in CS, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Foundational research plays a key role towards a better society. It pushes our collective knowledge forward, it allows for a better understanding of the world, it provides solid bases for applications and inspires them, and, very often, over time, it survives such particular applications. Universities should make knowledge widely available to the public, spread it through society in its more advanced and different forms. The proposed strategy by the University of Leicester is saddening, short-sighted and would damage the whole community around it.
Associate professor at GSSI and former associate professor at University of Leicester. UoL, once again, blindly bets on some areas of our discipline at detriment of the ones where a department has shown international leadership. This "strategy" has been already tried recently at UoL and it has shown all its limits: weakening a department makes it less attractive and demotivates potential good candidates. A management team that aims to invest in a new area of computer science should do so without weakening the areas in which the department excels.
Algorithm design and analysis, logic in computer science, foundations of software science, programming languages, concurrent systems, and testing and verification are areas that must be supported for being of uttermost importance in sciences.
Wrong-headed and short-sighted.
Professor in Computing Science, University of Glasgow This is incredibly shortsighted. Every aspect of CS is built on those foundations. Much of the progress in the application domain is are result of theoretical research.
How is it possible for AI/ML to exist without advancements in the foundations of computer science?
Assistant Professor at Gifu University, Japan
Senior Research Associate, University of Cambridge
Senior Lecturer at University of Manchester.