We are offering an attractive package to an incoming dynamic leader in the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility within the School of Computer Science and Informatics. 
 
This post is open to a professor, who will then help appoint two lecturers and two PhD students, or a team who comprise a professor, two lecturers and two PhD students. 
 
The School of Computer Science and Informatics (SCSI) is large (with some 100 staff and over 2,000 students) and has a very diverse make up (50% BAME, 30% female, wide age range). Its research is highly relevant and topical, through the concentration on the three main areas where computing affects modern society: AI, cyber, and social impact.
 
Artificial Intelligence is rapidly affecting the world, and there has been world-leading research in this area at De Montfort University for over 20 years. The ongoing stream of high-quality publications and international collaborations in this area is a main factor in the high international ranking of SCSI: 151-200 worldwide in the Shanghai Ranking, and 201-250 in the THES World University Rankings, as well as in the CSCI 2021 REF outcome which rated 2/3 of research outputs as world-leading or internationally excellent. Current research in AI ranges from world-leading theoretical developments to practical applications including with local government and companies.
 
Technological and political developments make Cyber Security, including topics such as privacy and surveillance capitalism, an issue of very high concern. The Cyber Technology Institute (CTI) at DMU has existed for over 15 years, has strong industry connections, and holds the highest recognitions awarded by the UK National Cyber Security Centre: Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research, and Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Education (Gold) – the only university in the East Midlands, the only post-1992 university, and one of only seven in the UK to hold both those awards.
 
The Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility (CCSR) is directly focused on the social impact of computing, and was for most of its 26 years’ existence the only such research group in the UK. Its work on social responsibility, ethics of computing and professionalism has had internationally leading impact on professional organisations, universities, UKRI research, industry and policy. It has attracted significant external income, in particular through a series of EU projects (over E7M in the last five years) including the ethics and data governance hub of the E1B Human Brain Project. This research is intrinsically interdisciplinary, working with researchers in the Business and Law faculty as well as many other disciplines. It also has significant overlaps with the other research topics, such as privacy with CTI, and ethics of AI and big data with AI. On the latter topic, the CCSR has influenced EU policy development through events at the European Parliament as part of the EU SHERPA project. A recent spin-out from CCSR research, ORBIT, provides training in responsible innovation including to UKRI projects and CDTs. The CCSR’s current size is some 10 academic staff, 10 RAs, and about 15 PhD students, with associate members across CSCI and DMU.
 
The research in CCSR is central to the university’s role as a Global Hub for UN Sustainable Development Goals, in particular SDG 16 “Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions”. The CCSR is also central to many of the cross-disciplinary research themes central to the new DMU Research Strategy, in particular “Living in a Digital Society”, but also the themes relating to sustainability and health.
 
We wish to establish a new group within the CCSR by appointing a full time, permanent Professor in Computing and Social Responsibility with a team who comprise of two new junior academics and two university-funded PhD positions. The new professor will be expected to be an intellectual and academic leader within the CCSR from the start, but will be free from teaching and administrative duties for their first whole academic year in order to establish and develop their group including through recruitment and seeking external funding, with their workload focus in subsequent years on research leadership and research. 
 
We expect the incoming research leader to present an area of focus within the broad interpretation of “Computing and Social Responsibility” which may be grounded within technology or within an affine discipline, but which is expected to provide significant cohesion with existing research at DMU – in the CCSR, in the other research areas in SCSI, and/or in the wider university.
 
We look forward to receiving applications from dynamic and visionary leaders who are promising to play a major role in transforming research and its resulting impact within the CCSR, the SCSI, and DMU as a whole.
 
To discuss the post further please contact the Head of School, Professor Eerke Boiten (eerke.boiten@dmu.ac.uk)