Bridging the Gap -Enabling a strategic and long lasting alliance between academic research staff at Loughborough University

拟议中的计划将建立并加强拉夫堡大学数学科学、信息和通信技术以及工程领域的学术研究人员之间的现有关系。它将增加拉夫堡大学跨学科驱动的应用科学和工程基地的规模和深度。拉夫堡大学最近致力于支持跨学科研究，包括战略组建（经参议院和理事会正式确认）3个新的研究学院（健康与生命科学研究学院、可持续发展研究学院和系统工程研究学院）。研究型学院将为跨越传统部门和教员界限的跨学科工作提供工具。“弥合差距”奖将显著加强和加速拉夫堡大学不同学科学术研究人员之间日益增长的关系，使拉夫堡大学能够进一步完善其对跨学科研究的理解。-使大学能够以策略性和连贯的方式更有效地应对未来的研究机会，而不是目前的临时合作活动。-为其研究项目组合带来新的力量和动力，并加深对如何在不同业务环境下进行研究的理解。将形成一个虚拟的跨学科研究集群，最初专注于四个令人兴奋的主题领域，每个领域都反映了新兴的战略研究方向。研究组合的跨学科专题方法将包括：-跨学科计算（耦合）建模和仿真-生物学启发的系统工程-医学启发的系统工程-复杂系统工程中的知识管理和表示这些领域并不相互排斥，并且将从拉夫堡大学的其他重要支持活动中获得杠杆作用，包括高性能计算，系统工程，信息科学和数学建模。拉夫堡大学在这些促进活动方面拥有强大的专业知识，拟议的跨学科研究集群旨在在确定的四个主要领域发展新的跨学科研究能力。将进行的活动包括：-建立合作环境-利用先进的合作环境技术在研究人员之间建立全天候的实时联系-组织跨学科沙坑-研究激励竞赛-资助“跨越桥梁”-沉浸式借调-资助访问学者计划-启动一个重要的高知名度研讨会计划

The proposed initiative will build upon and enhance the existing relationships between academic research staff working in the domains of mathematical sciences, information and communication technology, and engineering at Loughborough University. It will increase the scale and depth of Loughborough University's interdisciplinary driven applied science and engineering base. Loughborough University's recent committment to support interdisciplinary research has included the strategic formation (as formally confirmed by Senate and Council) of 3 new Research Schools (the Research School of Health and Life Sciences, the Research School of Sustainability and the Research School of Systems Engineering). The Research Schools will provide a vehicle for interdisciplinary working across traditional departmental and faculty boundaries. The 'Bridging the Gap' Award will significantly enhance and accelerate the growing relationships between academic researchers from different disciplines at Loughborough University by: - enabling the University to further refine its understanding of interdisciplinary based research. - enabling the University to respond more effectively to future research opportunities in a strategic and coherent manner as opposed to the current ad hoc collaborative activities. - bringing new strength and impetus to its portfolio of Research Programmes, and deliver an increased understanding of how research is carried out in different operational environments. A virtual interdisciplinary research cluster will be formed to initially focus on four exciting thematic areas, each reflecting emerging strategic research directions. The interdisciplinary thematic approach to the research portfolio will include: - Cross discipline computational (coupled) modelling and simulation - Biologically inspired systems engineering - Medically inspired systems engineering - Knowledge management and representation in complex systems engineering These areas are not mutually exclusive and will gain leverage from each other and other important enabling activities at Loughborough University including high performance computing, systems engineering, information science and mathematical modelling. Loughborough University has strong expertise in these enabling activities and the proposed interdisciplinary research cluster aims to develop new interdisciplinary research capability in the four major areas identified. Activities to be undertaken will include:- Establishing the collaborative environment- a 24/7 continuous live link-up between researchers using advanced collaborative environment technology- Orgainsing interdisciplinary sandpits - research pump-priming competition-Funding 'Crossing the bridge' - immersive secondments - Funding a visiting scholar scheme- Initiating a major high profile seminar programme