eFuturesXD Awards

eFuturesXD is a cross-disciplinary funder, offering awards to support UK academics in electronics as they initiate collaborative research across their discipline boundary. In this instance they are looking for collaborations which fall within the EPSRC ICT portfolio.

Currently 4 awards are available:

  • Travel Award – £5,000 to enable visits and exchanges
  • Meeting Award – £10,000 to organise events to build a consortium
  • Facility Award – £20,000 for the use of expensive facilities
  • Staff Award – £60,000 for carrying out larger scoping studies or for extended visits to teams within another discipline

In order to be eligible, you must conform to EPSRC eligibility guidelines, and therefore must hold an academic post. The proposal must involve at least two partners from UK universities and be cross-disciplinary within ICT. At least one applicant must be from the electronics community and must be active within eFutures, having registered with the website (http://efutures.ac.uk), provided their user profile and participated in network activities as appropriate.

Distribution of Funds

eFuturesXD has a total of £600,000 (100% FEC) to distribute over a three year period. They anticipate the release £100,000 (100% FEC) in each six month period of the grant although the panel are able to be flexible if required. The panel will meet every month to discuss applications and look at the overall portfolio.

If you are interested in applying for one of these awards please contact me.

Careers Event for Researchers: Women in Academia

Are you considering pursuing an academic career? Then don’t miss this interactive session where you can hear from and network with successful female academics. Find out what life is like as an academic, understand different perspectives on balancing life with an academic career and get tips on how to succeed as a female in academia. The event will comprise a short presentation from each speaker, a panel question and answer session and opportunities for informal discussion over drinks with the speakers.

Pre-booking is essential, as numbers are limited. To register, go to http://www.careers.ox.ac.uk/our-services/careerconnect/, search for event 3319 and click on ‘Register for Event’.  If you are research staff and do not have a Career connect account please email reception@careers.ox.ac.uk with your job title and department and they will set one up for you.

Date: Thursday 14 February
Time: 4pm to 6pm
Venue: The Careers Service, 56 Banbury Road

Forthcoming Call: Using Connections to Stay Ahead of the Cyber Threat

DARPA have announced this forthcoming call, for Cyber Targeted Attack Analyzer (CAT) which will be officially announced at http://www.fbo.gov. A Proposers Day is taking place in Virginia on 30 January 2013, after which the call will be opened.

Please let me know if you are interested in applying. Further details can be found at this link and below.

The link allows you to watch the call and to register interest.


The Department of Defense (DoD) maintains one of the largest computer networks in the world. The network follows DoD personnel across the globe collecting, transferring and processing information in forms as diverse as data warehouses, in-the-field mobile devices and mission computers on board F-18’s. This network is also constantly changing in size and shape as new missions are undertaken and new technology is deployed. In military terms, that means the cyber terrain of the DoD network is constantly shifting.

Traditional approaches to protecting networks involve static cyber firewalls around the network perimeter and patching any discovered holes. DARPA researchers seek a new approach, one that relies on knowing the cyber terrain within the network and understanding how information across the enterprise is connected to find actions associated with an attack buried under within all the normal data.

DARPA’s new Cyber Targeted-Attack Analyzer program will attempt to automatically correlate all of a network’s disparate data sources—even those that are as large and complex within the DoD — to understand how information is connected as the network grows, shifts and changes. Once all of the data sources are correlated, the program will attempt to integrate them on a network to allow the defenders to understand the connections—like injecting a contrasting smoke into the air to see how it flows. The third phase of the program also seeks to build tools that use this information for cyber defense of the network.

“The Cyber Targeted-Attack Analyzer program relies on a new approach to security, seeking to quickly understand the interconnections of the systems within a network without a human having to direct it,” said Richard Guidorizzi, DARPA program manager. “Cyber defenders should then be capable of more quickly discovering attacks hidden in normal activities.”

Performers for the program will address three challenges: Automatically indexing data sources on a network without human intervention; Integration of all data structures through a common language for security-related data, and; Development tools to allow reasoning over the federated database

British Science Association: Media Fellowships

Media Fellowships

Helping bridge the communication gap between journalists and scientists.

The British Science Association is offering Media Fellowships, which aim to give scientists and their colleagues, the confidence and willingness to engage with the media and tackle issues of mistrust and misrepresentation and to give journalists access to new scientific expertise.

Up to ten Media Fellowships are awarded each year to scientists, social scientists, clinicians and engineers from different backgrounds and stages of their career. The Fellows spend three to six weeks over the summer working with a media host: national press, broadcast or internet media.

This experience allows successful applicants to gain a greater awareness and understanding of the workings of the media and produce accurate and well-informed news pieces. Media Fellows will also work in the Press Centre at the British Science Festival.

Deadline: 11 March 2013

More information and how to apply can be found at this link.

January Research Support Newsletter!

This month’s Research Support Newsletter has been released and contains a round up of key items from this blog, including:

  • The Heidelberg Laureate Forum (a great opportunity for doctoral students and post-docs)
  • EPSRC Research Base Funding
  • ERC Consolidator Grant
  • Nokia Sensing Challenge