Research

96% of our research was deemed world leading or internationally excellent in the Research Excellent Framework 2021 assessment.

Our research is internationally recognised and our work addresses real-world societal and business challenges. Computer Science has seen rapid and substantial growth in recent years, fuelled by the deployment of technology in daily life and the emerging challenges and opportunities this presents.

Recently we have:

been involved in a Medical Research Council funded project to uncover new ‘fingerprints’ of brain disease
collaborated with one of our industry partners, Airbus, to create a new way of automatically detecting and killing cyberattacks on laptops, computers and smart devices
worked with museums across Europe (including the Natural History Museum in London) to create a digitisation process to capture physical information from fragile museum specimens. Scientists will be able to use this as they model past, present and future organisms (as they work on biodiversity, disease control and climate change).

Our growing team of staff and students are a crucial part of our success. They are based in our stunning new state-of-the-art facilities (central to Cardiff’s multi-million-pound innovation hub) with access to leading-edge hardware and software.

Our close collaborative relationships with industry and academic partners have contributed to the global impact of our research…

Head of School, Professor Stuart Allen

Research areas

Our research activity is organised into four priority areas focusing on emerging trends within our rapidly-evolving discipline:

Artificial intelligence and data analytics

Our research explores how computers can effectively perform tasks previously only possible for humans, and potential solutions to ambitious, far-reaching challenges.

Cybersecurity and privacy

Our research focuses on the fusion of data science/analytics and AI methods and explores what our approach to human and technical cyber security can tell us about cyber risk, threat intelligence, attack detection and situational awareness.

Human-centred computing

Our research explores how computers can computers better support our daily lives, and how emerging systems might impact on individuals, communities and society at large.

Visual computing

Our research looks at the images which are captured everyday and how computers can analyse them effectively and extract the meaning that will add value and make a difference.

Multidisciplinary impact

Our knowledge and expertise is being applied in innovative ways to help drive forward the research agenda and help our industrial and public sector partners solve problems. Our work is having an impact in a number of diverse areas:

healthcare (patient record systems and information visualisation)
defence
the environment (biodiversity management and geospatial information systems)
telecommunications (communications network design and virtual organisations)
engineering design (especially reverse engineering of solid shape)
high-performance and grid computing (distributed processing, knowledge management and immersive visualisation).

Learn more about our impact