Our research: your learning
At City University your professors and lecturers are researching into new areas of computing. This research feeds into the courses we teach and ensures that you learn about the very latest developments during your degree. Our staff are recognised experts in their fields, undertake consultancy, write patents and publish regularly in leading international journals.
The UK's national 2001 Research Assessment Exercise found that 85 per cent of our academic staff were undertaking research of national or international excellence (rating 4). In the past five years, we have received more than £3.5 million of external research income and won £5.5 million of new research income from industry, research councils and the European Union. Your degrees are also enhanced by relevant internationally-renowned, 5-rated, research in information management and business elsewhere in the University.
Our staff undertake research in three high-profile research areas - software engineering, human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence.
Saving the world
Air travel is a major contributor to global warming and other forms of environmental pollution. And this problem will get worse as we use more airports so that we can travel to more and more places. Clearly new and innovative solutions are needed. At City we are working on a large DTI-funded project to develop new computerized systems that are designed to minimize the environmental impact of airport movement during landing, taxiing and take-off. We are currently piloting these systems at Belfast City Airport.
Do you really trust computer systems?
Hospitals, power stations and other essential services have to rely on their computers. The Centre for Software Reliability at City is a major partner in the £8 million DIRC project which will develop new ways of making sure that computer systems are more reliable, more dependable and more trustworthy. This interdisciplinary project has examined all aspects of computer system dependability, from safety to security, in applications ranging from nuclear power plants to homes for the elderly.
Handing over safety
Clinical handover is an essential aspect of hospital patient safety, yet current practice varies from ward to ward and hospital to hospital. Handovers are often impromptu, informal and supported by ad hoc technologies. In the GHandI project we are investigating handover and the role of innovative handover support technologies in a range of different clinical settings at Guys, Great Ormond Street, the Royal Brompton and Kings College Hospitals in London as well as the Princess Royal University Hospital in Bromley.
Talking to the telly
Elderly and disabled people find it hard to use conventional remote controls when satellite TV with its interactive services could offer them so much. In the VISTA project with BSkyB and the Independent Television Commission we developed a virtual human interface that you can talk to via a microphone in the remote control.