University of Southampton and MIT launch WWW research collaboration (fwd)

[Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk>]

     ** Apologies for Cross-Posting **

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2006 15:40:02 -0000
From: Joyce Lewis <jkl2@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM@LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: University of Southampton and MIT launch WWW research
     collaboration

University of Southampton and MIT launch World Wide Web research
collaboration

Joint initiative will analyse and shape Web's evolution

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 2-The University of Southampton and the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology today announced the launch 
of a long-term research collaboration that aims to produce the 
fundamental scientific advances necessary to guide the future 
design and use of the World Wide Web.

The Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI) will generate a 
research agenda for understanding the scientific, technical and 
social challenges underlying the growth of the Web. Of particular 
interest is the volume of information on the Web that documents 
more and more aspects of human activity and knowledge. WSRI 
research projects will weigh such questions as, how do we access 
information and assess its reliability?  By what means may we 
assure its use complies with social and legal rules?  How will we 
preserve the Web over time?

Commenting on the new initiative, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of 
the World Wide Web and a founding director of WSRI, said, "As the 
Web celebrates its first decade of widespread use, we still know 
surprisingly little about how it evolved, and we have only 
scratched the surface of what could be realized with deeper 
scientific investigation into its design, operation and impact on 
society.

"The Web Science Research Initiative will allow researchers to 
take the Web seriously as an object of scientific inquiry, with 
the goal of helping to foster the Web's growth and fulfill its 
great potential as a powerful tool for humanity."

The joint MIT-Southampton initiative will provide a global forum 
for scientists and scholars to collaborate on the first 
multidisciplinary scientific research effort specifically 
designed to study the Web at all scales of size and complexity, 
and to develop a new discipline of Web science for future 
generations of researchers.

Professor Wendy Hall, head of school at Southampton University 
School of Electronics and Computer Science and also, along with 
Professor Nigel Shadbolt of ECS, a founding director of WSRI, 
said: "As the Web continues to evolve, it is becoming 
increasingly clear that a new type of graduate will be required 
to meet the needs of science and industry. Already we are seeing 
evidence of this, with major Internet companies and research 
institutions lamenting the fact that there are simply not enough 
people with the right mix of skills to meet current and future 
employment demands.  In launching WSRI, one of our ultimate aims 
is to address this issue."

WSRI will be headquartered at the Computer Science and Artificial 
Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT and at the School of 
Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of 
Southampton. Initial plans call for joint research projects, 
workshops and student/faculty exchanges between the two 
institutions. The initiative will have four founding directors: 
Tim Berners-Lee, director of the World Wide Web Consortium, 
senior research scientist at MIT and professor at the University 
of Southampton; Wendy Hall, professor of computer science and 
head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the 
University of Southampton; Nigel Shadbolt, professor of 
artificial intelligence at the University of Southampton and 
director of the Advanced Knowledge Technologies Interdisciplinary 
Research Collaboration;  and Daniel J. Weitzner, Technology and 
Society Domain leader of the World Wide Web Consortium and 
principal research scientist at MIT.

About MIT

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is dedicated to 
advancing knowledge and educating students in science, 
technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve 
the nation and the world in the 21st century. The Institute has 
more than 900 faculty and 10,000 undergraduate and graduate 
students. It is organized into five Schools -- Architecture and 
Urban Planning; Engineering; Humanities, Arts, and Social 
Sciences; Sloan School of Management; and Science.Current areas 
of research and education include neuroscience and the study of 
the brain and mind, bioengineering, the environment and 
sustainable development, information sciences and technology, new 
media, financial technology, and entrepreneurship.

About the University of Southampton

The University of Southampton is a leading UK teaching and 
research institution with a global reputation for leading-edge 
research and scholarship.  It is one of the UK's top 10 research 
universities, offering first-rate opportunities and facilities 
for study and research across a wide range of subjects in 
humanities, health, science and engineering.  The University has 
around 20,000 students and over 5000 staff.  Its annual turnover 
is in the region of ?310 million. With around 500 researchers, 
and 900 undergraduate students, the School of Electronics and 
Computer Science at Southampton is one of the world's largest and 
most successful integrated research groupings, covering Computer 
Science, Software Engineering, Electronics, and Electrical 
Engineering. ECS has unrivalled depth and breadth of expertise in 
world-leading research, new developments and their applications.

_________________________________________________

Joyce Lewis
Marketing and Communications Manager
School of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton
Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
T +44(0)23 8059 5453
E j.k.lewis@ecs.soton.ac.uk <mailto:j.k.lewis@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
<http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk>