CPHC
We are pleased to report that the plans for the UKCRC Workshop on Grand
Challenges for Computing Research are proceeding well. We have been
delighted with both the quality and quantity of the Grand Challenges and
other contributions that have been submitted to date. See
http://umbriel.dcs.gla.ac.uk/NeSC/general/esi/events/Grand_Challenges/
for more details.
URGENT. If you wish to help the work of the Workshop, you still have
until 22 Oct to make a submission of up to 1500 words to Peta Walmisley
[[log in to unmask]]. You do not have to formulate a challenge of
your own. Comments on the samples or the other submissions would be
equally helpful. Even just a description of a viewpoint you would like
to express if you were invited to participate. There are still places
available.
We would like to emphasise that our intention is that the
Workshop should be as open and inclusive as it is possible to be and yet
produce an effective result. It is part of our definition of a Grand
Challenge that it emerges from the enthusiasm and ambition of the
scientific community itself. Our Workshop will contain sessions for the
drafting, presentation and refinement of Grand Challenge proposals. It
is, therefore, essential to ensure that all participants are committed
and actively engaged in the process and we need an atmosphere conducive
to a free flowing discussion. The standard way to achieve this in
workshops is to ask intending participants to submit a short position
paper. Usually, everyone who submits a relevant paper is then invited to
attend -- and we anticipate that this will also be the case at the Grand
Challenges
Workshop. From the breadth and diversity of the position papers we have
already received it is clear that many researchers have understood this.
It will be a great pity if some have not and, thereby, elect to divorce
themselves and their contribution from this process. There is still time
to engage.
And there will be more time even when the Workshop is over. In
order to get the views of those not able to attend, we will shortly be
posting those Grand Challenges that we have already received onto the
web site and inviting everyone to comment on them. We will also be
posting the output of the Workshop. We have planned a six-month
discussion period before writing a summary of the results of the
Workshop. We also envisage that there will be follow-up workshops to
take forward the work on each of the Grand Challenges
recommended as ripe for early action. In addition, we wish to make this
process sustainable, so that there will be a continuing opportunity for
everyone to contribute and develop strategic thinking about our field.
Alan Bundy
Convener, UKCRC
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