The University of Manchester

The University of Manchester, UK, is one of the largest UK universities, part of the Russell Group. The University of Manchester’s place as one of the UK’s top research universities is evidence by the National REF evaluation. This showed that 83% of Manchester research activity was judged to be ‘world-leading’ (4*) or ‘internationally excellent’ (3*). This puts the University in fifth place in terms of research power. Areas of strength at Manchester includes Computer Science and Informatics, Materials, Biomedical research, psychology and linguistics. The university is particularly strong in attracting H2020, and hosts numerous ERC Fellows, including Professor Steve Furber at the School of Computer Science.

The University of Manchester will take part in this project through two research laboratories/groups: (i) Cognitive Robotics Lab, with Angelo Cangelosi; (ii) the ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development LUCID, with Thea Cameron-Faulkner.

The new Cognitive Robotics Lab, which was recently established at the School of Computer Science via the recent appointment of Professor Angelo Cangelosi as Chair of Machine Learning and Robotics, will provide expertise in cognitive modelling and robotics. The Cognitive Robotics Lab is part of the wider Machine Learning and Optimisation (MLO) Group within the School. This group applies cross-discipline collaborations with areas of interest to modern Machine Learning, including high-performance hardware for computer vision and neuromorphic computing. The MLO currently hosts over 30 PhD students and 4 postdoctoral researchers. It also has a Master programme in Advanced Computer Science. Cangelosi and the MLO staff have an outstanding track record of coordination and participation in numerous FP7/H2020, UK EPSRC and US projects for a total of over €10m in the last five years. The Cognitive Robotics Lab includes: the €250K iCub humanoid robot, a Sawyer robot and two Pepper robots for work on human- robot cooperation; access to GPU cluster for machine learning and to the SpiNNaker neuromorphic hardware. It also has a newly refurbished RobotHome Lab for experiments in human-robot interaction and robot companions.

The ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD) is a five year research collaboration working with partners from across the world to transform our understanding of how children learn to communicate with language. The LuCiD team includes over 40 researchers and 7 PhD students from Lancaster University, the University of Liverpool and the University of Manchester investigating key research questions about language development. Specifically the University of Manchester contributes to the Centre via the Divisions of Psychological Sciences and of Linguistics and English Language, with many studies taking place in the Child Study Centre, which provides EEG, eyetracking, head-mounted eyetracking, behavioural and in local educational institutions (nurseries, schools).