The Challenge of Robotics
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
The Grand Challenge in Non-classical Computation York Workshop
They seem to be getting everywhere, these pesky Grand Challnges...
The Grand Challenge in Non-classical Computation York Workshop
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
UK Computing Research Committee Grand Challenges
The UKCRC (UK Computing Research Committee) is an expert panel of the British Computer Society (BCS, the Council of Professors and Heads of Computing and the Institution of Electrical Engineers)established to "promote the vitality, quality and impact of Computing Research in the UK".
The Committee's strategy statement of November 2004 made a commitment to supporting computing Grand Challenges:
Working in partnership with other bodies, to assist in the creation of new funding opportunities for UK computing research. The grand challenges are one source of ideas for new funding programmes. We should also encourage UK computing researchers to look outside their traditional funding sources, eg to agencies for other disciplines, via collaborative projects with those disciplines or user communities; to government strategic programmes; to charitable trusts; to industry; and to public and private agencies in Europe, the USA and other countries.
Promotion of the grand challenges, as a contribution to the international development of our science, as a stimulus to the research community's strategic thinking about research directions and to promote long-term, fundamental research. We will promote both the already identified grand challenges and the formulation of new grand challenges.
The Committee's commitment to Grand Challenges is evidenced by a pair of reports produced in March 2004: Grand Challenges in Computing Research and Grand Challenges in Computing Education.
Criteria for a Grand Challenge
This paper from a previously cited workshop on Grand Challenges identifies a set of criteria that identify a Grand Challenge...
UK Research Council Grand Challenges
At a meeting of the Strategic Advisory Team to the EPSRC Innovative Manufacturing Programme in December, 2003, a discussion on the way forward for the EPSRC funded IMRCs (Innovative Manufacturing Research Centres) led to the suggestion that the IMRCs be invited to define a "Grand Challenge agenda and ambition - roadmap of big topics, clarify what a grand challenge is and move to a call as soon as possible, collaborative grand challenges as a mechanism for reinvention of IMRCs".
This suggestion appears to have been acted upon, as on Monday, 17th May, 2004, a workshop sponsored by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) was held in Cambridge to discuss the role of Grand Challenges as a way of enabling the sharing of research information and encouraging collaboration between university IMRCs.
In setting the scene, the EPSRC stated that "Grand Challenges are intended to help IMRCs develop their portfolio in ways that address major research challenges with the potential for significant impact on national manufacturing priorities, whilst encouraging IMRCs to work together and incorporating leading non-IMRC groups within the programme."
In order to achieve this, proposed Grand Challenges had to conform to several criteria, including, but not limited to:
- the ability to rise above the ordinary day to day stuff that you’re doing in the core of the IMRC
- the ability of the Grand Challenge to genuinely set a challenge and have the potential to re-shape some of the (core) programme of the IMRC
- the need to specify a discrete research challenges, not expected to last for more than 3 years in the first instance
- the involvement of at least 2 IMRCs andat least one external group
- the expectation that IMRCs would make some contribution from existing grant to projects.
Leading on from the workshop (?and another in June, 2004), the EPSRC put announced a funding initiative for IMRC Grand Challenges to the value of approximately £10 million in the financial year 2004-05.
The use of Grand Challenges for funding other areas also seems to be on the agenda. The OST Foresight project on Cognitive Systems suggested in January, 2004 that "exemplar 'grand challenges' will be addressed in workshops whose primary aim is to prepare the ground for major grant applications (e.g. to EPSRC, MRC, Wellcome Trust, relevant industry) that (a) span the life science/physical science divide; and are (b) tractable projects with clear science and engineering goals. The current list of prospective grand-challenge workshops includes: Knowledge, Memory and Learning; Robotics; Self-Organisation; Speech and Language; Vision."
[The Foresight program also produced this interesting horizon scanning paper on robotics and cognition.]
A meeting of the Council for Science and Technology in March 2005 also raises the possibility that Grand Challenges will become a driver of UK R&D:
CST gave a cautious welcome to the government's plans to define ‘grand challenges’ facing public policy where research can play a major role in establishing the way forward. CST broadly agreed that the concept of a ‘grand challenge’ could be helpful as a rallying call to action and that climate change, demographic changes in the UK (including ageing) and data management were all suitable candidates. The first step would be for government to define some focussed questions and CST would be happy to work with government in taking the 'grand challenges' forward.
