The UKeiG Strix award is an annual award for outstanding contributions to the field of information retrieval and is presented in memory of Dr Tony Kent, a past Fellow of the Institute of Information Scientists (IIS), who died in 1997. Tony Kent made a major contribution to the development of information science and information services both in the UK and internationally, particularly in the field of chemistry. The name 'Strix' was chosen to reflect Tony's interest in ornithology, and as the name of the last and most successful information retrieval packages that he created.
The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the Royal Institute of Chemistry, the Faraday Society, and the Society for Analytical Chemistry with a new Royal Charter and the dual role of learned society and professional body. At its inception, the Society had a combined membership of 34,000 in the UK and a further 8,000 abroad. The headquarters of the Society are at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London. It also has offices in Thomas Graham House in Cambridge where RSC Publishing is based. The Society has offices in the United States, on the campuses of The University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University, at the University City Science Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in both Beijing and Shanghai, China and in Bangalore, India.
The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals is a professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge managers in the United Kingdom.
Sir Colin Blakemore,, Hon was a British neurobiologist, specialising in vision and the development of the brain. He was Yeung Kin Man Professor of Neuroscience and senior fellow of the Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Study at City University of Hong Kong. He was a distinguished senior fellow in the Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London and Emeritus Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and a past Chief Executive of the British Medical Research Council (MRC). He was best known to the public as a communicator of science but also as the target of a long-running animal rights campaign. According to The Observer, he was both "one of the most powerful scientists in the UK" and "a hate figure for the animal rights movement".
Intute was a free Web service aimed at students, teachers, and researchers in UK further education and higher education. Intute provided access to online resources, via a large database of resources. Each resource was reviewed by an academic specialist in the subject, who wrote a short review of between 100 and 200 words, and described via various metadata fields what type of resource it was, who created it, who its intended audience was, what time-period or geographical area the resource covered, and so on. As of July 2010, Intute provided 123,519 records. Funding was stopped in 2011, and the site closed.
Atta-ur-Rahman, h-index 75, with 36,000 citations is a Pakistani organic chemist and is currently serving as Professor Emeritus at the International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences at the University of Karachi and as Chairman of PM Task Force on Science and Technology. He has twice served as the President of Pakistan Academy of Sciences. He was the Federal Minister of Science and Technology (2000-2002), Federal Minister of Education (2002) and Chairman Higher Education Commission with status of Federal Minister (2002-2008) He is also the President of the Network of Academies of Sciences in Countries of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (NASIC). After returning to Pakistan from Cambridge after completing his tenure as Fellow of Kings College, Cambridge University, he contributed to the development of the International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences at the University of Karachi, and transforming the landscape of higher education, science and technology of Pakistan. He is Fellow of Royal Society (London), Life Fellow of Kings College, Cambridge University, UK., and Professor Emeritus at University of Karachi
Sir Peter Leonard Knight is a British physicist, professor of quantum optics and senior research investigator at Imperial College London, and principal of the Kavli Royal Society International Centre. He is a leading academic in the field of quantum optics and is the recipient of several major awards including the Royal Medal from the Royal Society and the Thomas Young Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics. He is a former president of the Institute of Physics and the Optical Society of America, the first non North American-based person to take the position.
Moshe Ya'akov Vardi is an Israeli mathematician and computer scientist. He is the Karen Ostrum George Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering at Rice University, United States. and a faculty advisor for the Ken Kennedy Institute. His interests focus on applications of logic to computer science, including database theory, finite model theory, knowledge of multi-agent systems, computer-aided verification and reasoning, and teaching logic across the curriculum. He is an expert in model checking, constraint satisfaction and database theory, common knowledge (logic), and theoretical computer science.
Speaking of Research (SR) is an international group which "aims to provide accurate information about the importance of animal research in medical and veterinary science". It was founded in March 2008 by Tom Holder, an "energetic young British activist who played an active role in the Pro-Test movement at the University of Oxford," who moved to the US for the purpose of setting up such a group. Holder had previously been a spokesman for Pro-Test, as well as acting as emcee for their three demonstrations.
Sir Nigel Richard Shadbolt is Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, and Professorial Research Fellow in the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford. He is chairman of the Open Data Institute which he co-founded with Tim Berners-Lee. He is also a visiting professor in the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton. Shadbolt is an interdisciplinary researcher, policy expert and commentator. His research focuses on understanding how intelligent behaviour is embodied and emerges in humans, machines and, most recently, on the Web, and has made contributions to the fields of Psychology, Cognitive science, Computational neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Computer science and the emerging field of Web science.
Science and technology is a growing field in Pakistan and has played an important role in the country's development since its founding. Pakistan has a large pool of scientists, engineers, doctors, and technicians assuming an active role in science and technology. The real growth in science in Pakistan occurred after the establishment of the Higher education Commission in 2002 which supported science in a big way and also became the major sponsor of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences under the leadership of Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman. The emphasis was placed on quality rather than numbers during this period. The quality measures introduced by Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman as Founding Chairman HEC included:1) All Ph.D. thesis were evaluated by eminent foreign scientists,2) All PhD theses and research papers were checked for plagiarism 3) Some 11,000 students were sent abroad to leading universities for PhD level training and absorbed on their return, 4) Appointments at faculty positions were linked to international stature of the applicants as judged from their international publications, patents and citations, and (5) Quality Enhancement Cells were established in all universities for the first time in the history of the country. (6) The minimum criteria for establishment of a new university were approved by the Cabinet and universities that did not meet this criteria were closed down. (7) The Model University Ordinance was approved setting the governance parameters for new universities. (8) A list of fake higher education institutions was prepared and made public. (9) Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) was set up within the Higher Education Commission that established Quality Enhancement Cells (QECs) as its operational units in public and private-sector universities across the country. (10) The funding of universities was linked to excellence in teaching and research under a formula based funding mechanism that considered enrolment, subjects and quality of teaching and research. The first IT policy and implementation strategy was approved under the leadership of Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman, then Federal Minister of Science & technology, in August 2000 which laid the foundations of the development of this sector On the request of Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman, Intel initiated a nationwide programme to train school teachers in Information and Communication technologies in March 2002 which has led to the training of 220,000 school teachers in 70 districts and cities across Pakistan. A 15-year tax holiday was approved on the recommendation of Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman which has resulted in growth of IT business from $30 million in 2001 to over $3 billion. The Pakistan Austria University of Applied Engineering (Fachhochschule) has been established in Haripur Hazara under a Steering Committee Chaired by Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman in which students will get degrees from several Austrian universities. Pakistan's growth in scientific output can be seen from the fact that in 1990 Pakistan published 926 scholarly documents while in 2018 the number rose to 20548, a twenty times increase.In contrast India published 21443 scholarly documents in 1990 and the number rose to 171356 in 2018, an eight times increase. In 2018, 336 people per million were researchers in the R&D in Pakistan compared to 256 people per million being researchers in India. The reforms begun by Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman FRS in 2003-2008 have continued over the subsequent decade and according to the Web of Science report, there was a 300% growth in research publications in 2019 over the decade, with 2019 marking the first year in which Pakistan was ranked above the world average in research. In 2019, Pakistan produced 300% more publications indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection than in 2010. In the decade of 2010-2019, more than half of Pakistan’s research was published in journals with Impact Factor. The global influence of Pakistan’s research is increasing as scientists in the country are publishing more in top quartile journals. The Category Normalized Citation Impact of Pakistan’s publications has risen from 0.67 to 1.03. output. As of 2020, Pakistan has 85% teledensity with 183 million cellular, 98 million 3G/4G and 101 million broadband subscribers, due to the foundations laid by Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman of the IT and telecom industry during 2000-2008. In an analysis of scientific research productivity of Pakistan, in comparison to Brazil, Russia, India and China, Thomson Reuters has applauded the developments that have taken place as a result of the reforms introduced by Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman FRS, since Pakistan has emerged as the country with the highest increase in the percentage of highly cited papers in comparison to the "BRIC" countries
Y Touring Theatre Company was a national touring theatre company which produced original plays and debates exploring contemporary issues. It was founded in 1989 by Nigel Townsend. The company was based in Kings Cross, London, England and was a former operation of Central YMCA.
Jason Farradane, born Jason Lewkowitsch was a British librarian of Polish descent.
Julia Mary Slingo is a British meteorologist and climate scientist. She was Chief Scientist at the Met Office from 2009 until 2016. She is also a visiting professor in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading, where she held, prior to appointment to the Met Office, the positions of Director of Climate Research in the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) National Centre for Atmospheric Science and founding director of the Walker Institute for Climate System Research.
Christopher Gutteridge is a Systems, Information and Web programmer, part of the IT Innovation team in the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton. He is known for being the lead developer for GNU EPrints and for being an advocate for Open Data, Linked Data and the Open Web.
Blaise Cronin is an Irish-American information scientist and bibliometrician. He is the Rudy Professor Emeritus of Information Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he was Dean of the School of Library and Information Science for seventeen years. From 1985 to 1991 he held the Chair of Information Science and was Head of the Department of Information Science at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, U.K.
The Department of Information Studies is a department of the UCL Faculty of Arts and Humanities.
Polina Leopoldovna Bayvel is a British engineer and academic. She is currently Professor of Optical Communications & Networks in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at University College London. She has made major contributions to the investigation and design of high-bandwidth multiwavelength optical networking.
Sanjeev Das is an Indian cancer biologist and a scientist at National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi, India. He is well regarded for his studies on tumor suppressor proteins. He is a recipient of the National Bioscience Award for Career Development of the Department of Biotechnology. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to biological sciences in 2017.
