Professor Peter Edwards | The School of Natural and Computing Sciences

Professor Peter Edwards

PhD CITP FBCS FIET FRSA

Vice-Principal Regional Engagement

About

Email Address: p.edwards@abdn.ac.uk
Telephone Number: +44 (0)1224 273021
School/Department: Senior Vice Principals

Personal Assistant

Personal Assistant: Suzanne Fleming

ORCiD

Biography

Having completed an undergraduate degree in Chemistry, I then shifted my academic allegiance and completed a PhD (Leeds) which explored cooperative reasoning in distributed blackboard systems. I joined the University of Aberdeen as a postdoc in Computing Science in October 1988, before moving into an academic position as a Lecturer in 1991. I was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2002 and Professor in 2009.

As a researcher I have been fortunate to lead a number of major interdisciplinary efforts, first as Director of the ESRC funded PolicyGrid eSocial Science Research Node (2006-2012) and later as Director of the RCUK dot.rural Digital Economy Research Hub (2009-2015). To date, I have secured over £20M in external research funding, the majority of it from UKRI (formerly RCUK) sources.

I am currently Vice-Principal for Regional Engagement.

I have also held numerous offices at the University of Aberdeen, most notably Head of Computing Science (2002-2005), Head of Graduate School for the College of Physical Sciences (2005-2011) and Head of the School of Natural & Computing Sciences (2018-2021). In addition, I was the founding Director of the Northern Research Partnership Graduate School (involving Aberdeen, Dundee and Robert Gordon universities) between 2007 and 2009. I was a member of the University Senate from 2002 to 2014 (and again 2018- ), and a Senate Assessor to the University Court between 2007 and 2014; in addition, I served on the Operating Board of the University Court for six years (2008-2014).

Regional Engagement

As Vice-Principal I am responsible for leading the development and implementation of a strategy for the University to make an effective contribution to the economic, social and cultural activity of the region. My remit also encompasses innovation strategy and work to enhance institutional performance around entrepreneurship, startups/spinouts, consultancy and commercialisation. Wider responsibilities include digital strategy, and oversight of several strategic estates and digital projects.

Qualifications

PhD Computational Chemistry
1990 - University of Leeds

Memberships and Affiliations

Internal Memberships

Digital Strategy Committee - Convenor
Enterprise & Innovation Committee - Convenor
Regional Engagement Committee - Convenor
Startup & Spin-out Panel - Convenor
University Promotion Committee I - Convenor
Gaelic Language Plan Advisory Group - Convenor
Advisory Group on Collections Deaccessioning and Repatriation - Convenor
Campus Re-imagination Project Board - Project Sponsor/Convenor
Sustainable Heating Programme Board - Project Sponsor/Convenor
Science Teaching Hub Project Board - Project Sponsor/Convenor
Engagement CRM Project Board - Project Sponsor/Convenor
Rowett Research Institute (RRI) Ltd - Chair & Director
Campaign Management Board - Member
Estates Committee - Member
Honorary Degrees Committee - Member
Information Governance Committee - Member
Risk Management Committee - Member
TRAC Steering Committee - Member
Partnership and Negotiating Consultative Committee (PNCC) - Member
University Management Group (UMG) - Member
Senate - Ex Officio Member
University of Aberdeen Superannuation & Life Assurance Scheme - Trustee

External Memberships

EPSRC Peer Review College - Member
ESRC Peer Review College - Member
Carnegie Trust Research Assessor
Community Planning Aberdeen Board - Member
Regional Inward Investment Forum - Member
University of Aberdeen - NHS Grampian Liaison Group - Member
North East Scotland Investment Zone Working Group - Member
Aberdeen (Tertiary) Education Liaison Group, Aberdeen City Council - Member

Latest Publications

Embedding AI-Enabled Data Infrastructures for Sustainability in Agri-Food: Soft-Fruit and Brewery Use Case Perspectives
2024 - Published
Markovic, M., Li, A. H., Ayall, T. A., Watson, N. J., Bowler, A. L., Woods, M., Edwards, P., Ramsey, R., Beddows, M. A., Kuhnert, M., Leontidis, G.
Sensors, vol. 24, no. 2024, 7327
Contributions to Journals: Articles
- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/s24227327
- [OPEN ACCESS] http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/24638/1/sensors-24-07327.pdf
Farm Explorer: A Tool for Calculating Transparent Greenhouse Gas Emissions
2024 - Published
Markovic, M., Germano, S., Garijo, D., Edwards, P., Li, A., Ayall, T. A., Ramsey, R., Leontidis, G.
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings
- [ONLINE] https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3828/paper31.pdf
Model pruning enables localized and efficient federated learning for yield forecasting and data sharing
2024 - Published
Li, A. H., Markovic, M., Edwards, P., Leontidis, G.
Expert Systems with Applications, vol. 242, pp. 1-12
Contributions to Journals: Articles
- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2023.122847
- [OPEN ACCESS] http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/22372/1/Leontidis_1-s2.0-S0957417423033493-main.pdf
- [ONLINE] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957417423033493
Model Pruning Enables Localized and Efficient Federated Learning for Yield Forecasting and Data Sharing
2023 - Published
Li, A., Markovic, M., Edwards, P., Leontidis, G.
Working Papers: Preprint Papers
- [ONLINE] http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.09876v1
- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2304.09876
- [OPEN ACCESS] http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/21211/1/2304.09876v1.pdf
Using Knowledge Graphs to Unlock Practical Collection, Integration, and Audit of AI Accountability Information
2022 - Published
Naja, I., Markovic, M., Edwards, P., Pang, W., Cottrill, C., Williams, R.
IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 74383 - 74411
Contributions to Journals: Articles
- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3188967
- [OPEN ACCESS] http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/19023/1/Naja_etal_IEEE_Using_Knowledge_Graphs_VOR.pdf

View My Publications

Research

Research Overview

Intelligent information infrastructures built upon the semantic web stack. My interests span models of provenance, trust, information quality, transparency and accountability and the realisation of these in the context of the web, the internet of things, and autonomous systems. My work has a strong applications focus in areas as diverse as food safety, transport, smart cities, logistics and healthcare.

Research Areas

Computing Science

Supervising

View Research Area

Research Specialisms

Knowledge and Information Systems
Information Management
Internet Technologies
Artificial Intelligence
Intelligent Systems

Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

Current Research

Enhancing Agri-Food Transparent Sustainability - EATS
(Aberdeen, Dundee, SRUC, Nottingham)
EPSRC: EP/V042270/1, 2022-2024

Funding and Grants

Enhancing Agri-Food Transparent Sustainability - EATS
EPSRC, 2022-2024

PROoFD IT!: Provenance of Food Delivery through IoT
EPSRC Internet of Food Things Network+, 2019

Realising Accountable Intelligent Systems - RAInS
EPSRC: EP/R033846/1, 2019-2022

Trusted Things & Communities: Understanding & Enabling a Trusted IoT Ecosystem
EPSRC: EP/N028074/1, 2016-2019

Trust & Privacy in Smart City IoT Solutions
Royal Society of Edinburgh - Taiwan Ministry of Science & Technology, 2017-2019

The Food Sentiment Observatory: Exploiting New Forms of Data to Help Inform
Policy on Food Safety & Food Crime Risks (with Food Standards Scotland)
ESRC: ES/P011004/1, 2017-2018

Smart Routing
Innovate UK, 2016-2017

Food Safety Assurance: Combining Provenance & The Internet of Things
IT as a Utility Network+ & Food Standards Agency, 2015-2016

Social Media: Developing Understanding, Infrastructure & Engagement
ESRC: ES/M001628/1, 2014-2016

dot.rural Digital Economy Research Hub
EPSRC (with AHRC, ESRC, MRC): EP/G066051/1, 2009-2015

Trusted Tiny Things
EPSRC IT as a Utility Network+, 2013-2014

Creativity @ Home Award
EPSRC, 2012-2014

A Trusted Mobile Platform for Self-Management of Chronic Illness in Rural Areas - TRUMP
EPSRC - India DST: EP/J00068X/1, 2011-2014

SmartTourism
SFC Horizon Fund, 2011-2014

PolicyGrid II: Supporting Interdisciplinary Evidence Bases for Scientific
Collaboration and Policy Making
ESRC: ES/F029713/1, 2009-2012

BEhaviour for Well-being, Environment and Life - BE-WEL
ESRC (with BBSRC, MRC), 2009-2010

eInfrastructure for Social Sciences
ESRC: RES-149-25-1063, 2006-2009

SwarmCloud
JISC, 2008-2009

PolicyGrid: Semantic Grid Tools for Rural Policy Development & Appraisal
ESRC: RES-149-25-1027, 2006-2009

Access Grid Node Competition - Equipment Award`
ESRC, 2006

Pilot Semantic Grid Service for Environmental Modelling
ESRC: RES-149-25-0011, 2003-2005

Teaching

Teaching Responsibilities

I am not currently involved in teaching activity, other than PhD supervision.

Publications

Update

Biography

Regional Engagement

Qualifications

Memberships and Affiliations

Latest Publications

Embedding AI-Enabled Data Infrastructures for Sustainability in Agri-Food: Soft-Fruit and Brewery Use Case Perspectives

Farm Explorer: A Tool for Calculating Transparent Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Model pruning enables localized and efficient federated learning for yield forecasting and data sharing

Model Pruning Enables Localized and Efficient Federated Learning for Yield Forecasting and Data Sharing

Using Knowledge Graphs to Unlock Practical Collection, Integration, and Audit of AI Accountability Information

Research Overview

Research Areas

Computing Science

Research Specialisms

Current Research

Funding and Grants

Teaching Responsibilities

Towards automated privacy risk assessments in IoT systems

Build an app and they will come? Lessons learnt from trialling the GetThereBus app in rural communities

Capturing the Provenance of Internet of Things Deployments

Towards Transparency of IoT Message Brokers

Challenges of Open Data Quality: More Than Just License, Format, and Customer Support

The challenge of quality in social computation

Linking open data and the crowd for real-time passenger information

Semantic Stream Processing for IoT Devices in the Food Safety Domain

Modelling Provenance of Sensor Data for Food Safety Compliance Checking

Social Media Data in Research: Provenance Challenges

Digital Innovation Through Partnership Between Nature Conservation Organisations and Academia: A Qualitative Impact Assessment

An Access Control Model for Protecting Provenance Graphs

Interrogating Capabilities of IoT Devices

SC-PROV: A Provenance Vocabulary for Social Computation

QUAL: A Provenance-Aware Quality Model

Development of a Digital Tool to Overcome the Challenges of Rural Food SMEs

The Transport Disruption Ontology

TravelBot: Journey Disruption Alerts Utilising Social Media and Linked Data

Trusted Tiny Things: Making Devices in Smart Cities More Transparent

What Does this Device Do?

You'll Never Ride Alone: The Role of Social Media in Supporting the Bus Passenger Experience

Providing Older Adults With Real-time Passenger Information via SMS

A digital tool to overcome the challenges of rural food SMEs in Scotland

Lessons learnt from the deployment of a semantic virtual research environment

Developing SMiLE (Smart Micro-logistics for the Rural Economy): evidence from Scotland

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Books and Reports

Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings

Contributions to Conferences

Contributions to Journals

Working Papers