CAMaCS Newsletter #1

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to our first quarterly newsletter!

Although CAMaCS officially came into existence in September 2023, with this being the first of a series of quarterly newsletters, we would like to start by formally reintroducing ourselves.

Our core team consists of our Centre Director, Program Manager & KE Champion, Centre Manager, five (soon to be six) Innovation Research Associates (InRAs), and is supported by our executive committee. We’ve also welcomed two PhD Innovation Research Interns (InRIs), the second of whom is just coming to the end of their 6 month placement with us.

Recent News

The last 18 months have revealed the exceptional talent and opportunity that Warwick has to offer, as well as the potential that CAMaCS can unlock, in terms of impact for Mathematical and Computing Sciences in Warwick.

Since inception CAMaCS has worked at breakneck speed to add value to the process of seeding and delivering impact across the three departments of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science and their partners. CAMaCS now has a number of signature approaches to delivery:

Innovation Research associate team: Our Innovation Research Associates are working across multiple projects with a range of different collaborators. With their extensive expertise and CAMaCS’ flexible funding model, Innovation Research Associates seamlessly support project delivery, guide Principal Investigators, and maximize impact.
Thinkubator series: Our day long Thinkubators stand out from the crowd with their “input the challenge, output the mathematical question” approach to workshops. We join together individuals with a range of experience and backgrounds to collaboratively design the pathway to future impact.
ImpactLabs: Continuing our motivation to improve the research-value pipeline, our Impact Labs are to the end of a research project what a Thinkubator is to the start. A short, intensive workshop designed to formulate key next steps and innovate future avenues. This brainstorming workshop has already successfully run after the completion of two of our InRA projects, furthering the action to impact.
PGR training: What better way to continue to sure-up the research-value pipeline than by supporting effective and impactful practices within our ECRs. We are in the process of developing training resources for the ECRs, and on select projects we are delighted to offer the opportunity for Innovation Research Internships for PhD students to experience the world of impactful research first hand.

Thanks to the efforts of the many talented people who have been working through CAMaCS, we have been able to maintain a fully funded portfolio of activity for the time of our InRA team - including success with a number of external and internal funding awards totalling well over 3 million pounds so far. We have engaged with cross-campus collaborations and continue to grow our list of external partners, including Truss, Warwick Police, Cytecom, BarberBoss LtD, and Platform Housing Group to name a few.

Success Story – TRUSS

“Our £1M Innovate UK grant collaboration with a Warwick startup, TRUSS, has been a transformative journey for both research and business. In this project, we focused on the enhancement of image retrieval in the second-hand fashion market. Our cutting-edge academic research combined with the startup’s dynamic market insights has fostered an environment where ideas were rapidly exchanged, tested and refined. We had the rewarding opportunity to test various algorithms to address the challenges raised by TRUSS and observe the impact of our research in the second-hand fashion industry as well as help reshape the landscape of second-hand fashion via AI. Our mutually beneficial collaboration embodies all the hallmarks of a future impact case study, showcasing how academic-industry partnerships can spark a sustainable change. We are proud to share this success story as a testament to the power of collaboration between academia and industry.” - Julio, Haoran, Duygu

Upcoming

The next few months in the CAMaCS calendar are packed with engaging events designed to bring together the wider CAMaCS community.

If you are interested in getting involved with any of these please reach out to us using the links below.
Specific announcements, e.g. Thinkubator participation, will also follow by email through various channels.

Looking further ahead, we are thrilled to announce that we won the bid to host the European Study Group in industry (ESGI) in 2027 (https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/camacs/events/esgi2027/). We are excited to see the plans slowly come to fruition over the next two years.

Did you know…..?

One of our Innovation Research Associates (InRAs) has walked back from a conference in Edinburgh… to London!

Links & About Us

Linking world-leading research with external partners to bring value to society through impact.

Email: camacs@warwick.ac.uk
Website: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/camacs/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/camacs/