Department of Computer Science

Department of Computer Science

The department is housed across the Spärck Jones and the Laura Annie Willson buildings.  It contains the offices of our staff, most of our research laboratories, seminar/tutorial rooms, and flexible teaching and study space. Both our departments benefit from industry standard facilities to support our diverse range of courses and over £4million of investment in 22/23 and 23/24 continually improves our infrastructure.  Students in computer science have access to dedicated industry standard computer labs.

Our staff bring energy and enthusiasm to their work, offering expertise in their fields. Their established industry links allow us to continually refresh and update our teaching and research. 

The quality and power of our research across the school was recognised in the most recent REF (Research Excellence Framework) assessment, 2021, where most of our research and impact was assessed as being world-class or internationally leading.  Our research community has expertise in such diverse areas as visualisation, information and systems engineering and intelligent systems.  It is our aim to research and develop new methods and technology in computer science that will have a real impact on global grand challenges in areas such as transport, health, security, and energy.

This is further supported by the highly prestigious award of Queens Anniversary Prizes in both 2019 and 2021 for excellence, innovation, and public benefit from our research.

Our Research

The School of Computing and Engineering boasts a vibrant and successful research environment, with over 180 academics and researchers actively engaged in ground-breaking research with real-world applications.

With activities over a range of computer science and engineering disciplines, we have a large portfolio of research and innovation projects supported by funding from, for example, UKRI (EPSRC, STFC and Innovate UK), the Royal Academy of Engineering, EU Horizon Programmes, and direct industry contracts. 

The latest 2021 REF results show that the research carried out in the School has increased significantly in quality and impact as well as volume since the last assessment in 2014. This is a clear recognition of the excellent research that is now being carried out here and the impact it is having as well as the hard work that colleagues in the school have put into bidding for research funding and producing world class outputs.

The highlights:

✔️ In Computer Science 83.3% of Impact was at 3* or 4*

Researchers in computer science are working on visualisation, information and systems engineering and intelligent systems. Our facilities are industry standard, incorporating a dedicated computer networking, mobile and forensic computing laboratory, as well as creative studio environments and industry standard software. Our aim is to research and develop new methods and technologies in computer science that will have a real impact on global grand challenges in areas such as transport, health, security, and energy.

Our facilities