About Our Research

Whilst computers are now commonplace, there are still significant challenges at the heart of the discipline, including novel forms of computation, e.g. quantum and biologically inspired, and development and assurance of large-scale systems. However, many of the challenges are interdisciplinary, and in the interaction of computing with other technologies; in recognition of this the Department has joint appointments with Biology and Electronics, and working links with disciplines as diverse as Mathematics, Medieval studies and Psychology.

The Department's research strength are recognised in the awarding of the highest ranking – 5* - in the last two research assessment exercises.

The Department of Computer Science at York carries out fundamental research which is setting the agenda in the discipline; it also works extensively with industry, translating research results into usable solutions. Increasingly the Department's work is interdisciplinary.

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Research Group Structure

The research group structure is flexible, to respond to new research opportunities. During 2001-7, two new research groups have been established.

For more information about our research groups please visit the research groups page.

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Research Links

The department has active research links with other York departments: Biology (joint RCUK Fellowship); Biology and Electronics (Centre for Complex Systems Analysis); Chemistry (joint EPSRC studentship); Electronics (joint readership in Bio-inspired Computing); Mathematics (two EPSRC MathFIT grants); Medieval Studies (scribe identification project); Psychology (the SRIF3/Wolfson £5.2M York Neuroimaging Centre, and joint work on face recognition); Psychology and Electronics (Centre for Usable Home Technologies).

The Department also has wider interdisciplinary links:

  • Real-time Systems were involved in Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration in Dependability (DIRC): an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 6-year Interdisciplinary Research Centre grant to York, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Lancaster, and City. This multidisciplinary project researched into dependability of socio-technical systems, and involved psychologists, sociologists, statisticians, computer scientists and system engineers. The project was assessed as "outstanding" by the EPSRC final review in 2007. The work continues in the INDEED project.
  • Our Non-standard Computation research group is involved in work with immunologists at the Jenner Institute (Oxford) on an EPSRC grant and physicists at Tokyo on experimentally verifying theoretical predictions in quantum information processing.
  • Our High Integrity Systems Engineering research group is involved in a new EPSRC 5-year interdisciplinary research programme on large scale complex IT systems (LSCITS) in Health and Aerospace/Defence.
  • Other collaborations include two UKCRC Grand Challenges led from within the Department: Dependable Systems Evolution (including the International Challenge in Verified Software) by Woodcock, and Journeys in Nonclassical Computation by Stepney.

The University has maintained a consistent policy of investing in Computer Science. Although currently housed in purpose-built accommodation, Computer Science will be amongst the first to move to a new GBP 500M campus in 2009-10. New facilities will promote interdisciplinary work, including a dedicated Centre for Complex Systems Analysis, and allow further growth to 48 academic staff, with at least one new Chair, by 2012.

A possible new research group is e-Science and Enterprise Computing is a newly formed research group within the department.

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