The university is literally on top of the world!

Jan 17 2009 by Neil Atkinson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

The university is literally on top of the world!

UNIVERSITY staff in Huddersfield are literally on top of the world when it comes to research.

Thirty-five research staff have had their work classed as ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’ by the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

The Government organisation carries out research assessments on studies done by different universities.

Research is put into one of five bands: world leading, internationally excellent, internationally recognised, nationally recognised or unclassified.

Huddersfield University entered research in 12 subjects, accountancy, chemistry, computing, education, engineering, English, history, media, music, politics, social work and sociology.

Prof Mike Page, deputy vice-chancellor, said he was thrilled with the results.

“To have 35 staff assessed as internationally excellent and world leading is a brilliant outcome for a university of this size.

“The university is committed to increasing its research profile in all its subjects and the assessments show that commitment is starting to bear fruit. Our research staff are to be congratulated.”

One of the researchers whose work won praise was Prof Lee McCluskey, who is working on ways to teach computers to think for themselves.

The ultimate aim of his team is to create ‘artificial intelligence’, a way of computers thinking for themselves.

Prof McCluskey said the key was to allow robots to learn by example.

“The key strategy for endowing a machine with artificial intelligence is to set it goals that it must achieve and then allowing it plenty of latitude in how it does so.

“Take the robot that has been landed on Mars as an example. Controlling its every move from Earth would be unrealistic.

“So what you try and do is enable these robots to have representations of their environment, using sensors. In essence, the ability to make decisions for themselves to achieve given objectives.”

Prof McCluskey is not sending robots to Mars; he is concentrating on virtual environments, such as getting computer game characters to act in ways that are not predictable or repetitive.

Giving a character intelligent behaviour makes for more exciting gameplay.

He said: “It has to be able to re-plan to achieve its programmed goals. The painstaking way for this to happen is for scientists to input a massive amount of data.

“However, we are working on a far better solution where such things as computer game characters or the even the Mars robot would be to find ways that the acquisition of knowledge could be automated; in simple terms, they learn for themselves.”

His team has written a computer programme which helps computers to learn and plan.

The next goal for the School of Computing and Engineering is to develop a relationship with a company which sees the potential of this research.

Ground-breaking research is also being done in the field of music.