Externally Funded Research & Innovation Projects
PERSIST
| Project title | PERSIST: Purchasing Education Research Syndicate: Industry4.0 Skills Transfer |
| Dates | September 2019 – August 2022 |
| Project Website | PERSIST’s Website |
| Funding Source | Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships – European Commission |
| Amount | Edge Hill University share: €56,235; Total: €449,685 |
| People Involved | Dr Stephen Kelly, Dr Peter Vangorp |
| Description | The aim of this project is to identify the Purchasing and Supply Management (PSM) skills that are likely to prevail in the modern network economy and those that are newly added to the profile of a European purchaser to develop an Industry4.0 PSM Skills framework; to develop a module-based course for higher education to teach these skills; and to develop new gamification and playful interaction-oriented didactical elements for the purpose of a student-centred teaching approach, including a gamified massive open online course (MOOC). Coordinator: University of Twente, Netherlands. Partners: Technical University of Dortmund, Germany; Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology, Finland; University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia |
CHARM
| Project title | CHARM: Context-aware Human Activity Recognition and Monitoring for intelligent vehicles |
| Dates | April 2019 – March 2021 |
| Project Website | CHARM’s Website |
| Funding Source | UKIERI (UK-India Education and Research Initiative) – DST (Department of Science and Technology, India) |
| Amount | Edge Hill University share: £149,000; Total: £194,900 |
| People Involved | Dr Ardhendu Behera, Prof Yonghuai Liu, Prof Nik Bessis |
| Description | CHARM aims to become a clear front-runner in real-time unobtrusive monitoring of complex human activities as they progress by developing a sound and widely applicable context-aware recognition framework. This is a difficult problem involving computer vision (CV), big data and artificial intelligence (AI), with immediate applications to smart cyber physical systems/environments. The framework is targeted for the Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) for safe driving, Take-Over-Request (TOR) for the next generation intelligent autonomous vehicles, as well as more natural human-car/robot/machine interactions associated with many cyber physical systems. Coordinator: Edge Hill University (UK Lead), UK and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India (India Lead) Academic Partners: University of Bristol, UK; Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, India |
Country Range Group
| Project title | Country Range Group |
| Dates | 2019-2022 |
| Funding Source | Knowledge Transfer Partnership – Innovate UK |
| Amount | £238,000 |
| People Involved | Dr Marcello Trovati, Dr Charles Knight, Prof Nik Bessis |
| Description | Country Range Group (CRG) is a food service buying group for UK based food wholesalers. Its purpose is to position members as food-service wholesalers of choice for retailers, caterers and brand-owners. A core theme of CRG’s strategy is driving growth through data driven capabilities. The aim of the KTP is to create a powerful SMART management customer insight system, designed around relevant business processes of CRG and the group members companies. This project will position CRG as a leading UK food buying group within their market segment. |
TechUp
| Project title | TechUp: Tech retraining for underrepresented women in the Midlands and North of England |
| Dates | 2019-2020 |
| Funding Source | Future Project Fund, Institute of Coding, OfS |
| Amount | £121,000 |
| People Involved | Prof Ella Pereira, Prof Nik Bessis |
Productivity Innovation Centre (PIC)
| Project title | Data Analytics |
| Dates | 2018-2020 |
| Funding Source | ERDF (led by PIC) |
| Amount | £20,540 |
| People Involved | Dr Marcello Trovati |
| Description | This is a cross-departmental activity (in collaboration with some members of the Business School) aiming to facilitate external business in the identification of innovative solutions and opportunities. The use of Big Data will enable the automated extraction and assessment for actionable information from potentially huge data with various formats. |
Vehicular Cyber security
| Project title | Vehicular Cyber security |
| Dates | September 2018 – February 2019 |
| Funding Source | Global Car Manufacturer industry |
| Amount | £10,000 |
| People Involved | Prof Nik Bessis, Dr Marcello Trovati |
Cyber Security for IoT Based Healthcare Applications
| Project title | Cyber Security for IoT Based Healthcare Applications |
| Dates | March 2018 – March 2019 |
| Funding Source | Joint Academic Development Centres Grant, Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy |
| Amount | Edge Hill University share: £ 13,000; Total: £ 38,000 |
| People Involved | Dr Chitra Balakrishna, Prof Nik Bessis |
| Description | The aim of this proposal is to establish a collaborative research link between University of Bahrain and Edge Hill University in cybersecurity area. The two institutions offer BSc and MSc programs in cybersecurity, in addition to conducting active research in the areas of cyber security and Internet of Things. This research link will directly enable to create a synergy between the two institutions’s academic and research activities. Edge Hill has recently concluded a successful project on cyber security funded by the Higher Education Academy (http://www.cyberedge.uk). The sustainable impact can be demonstrated through sharing both teaching and learning practices as well as research findings between the two institutions. This could lead to offering world-class training in cyber-security, in addition to joint MSc and PhD supervisions between the two institutions resulting in high-quality joint-publications. By establishing a long-term research relationship, the two institutions could mutually benefit from the resources, domain experts and industry partners to explore core cyber security research challenges through external research grants. This relationship could be further explored in form of student-exchange programs and delivering specialist cyber-security training to students and staff. Partners: Dr Wael Al-Medany (Co-I) |
MOTHER
| Project title | MOTHER: Maternal IoT Garment for Home-based Foetal Electro-cardiogram |
| Dates | February 2018 – September 2018 |
| Funding Source | eFutures Sandpit Award (EPSRC) |
| Amount | Edge Hill University share: £ 1,800; Total: £ 8,000 |
| People Involved | Dr Chitra Balakrishna |
| Description | This project aims to develop an innovative wearable IoT foetal electrocardiogram (FECG) device to provide a home-based solution for foetal monitoring. Women undergoing high-risk pregnancies require regular FECG monitoring to ensure the baby is not at risk. At present most FECG solutions are not home-based and only available onsite at hospitals. The few home-based FECG products in the market, however, are not suitable for daily usage due to the limited wearability. With advanced printed electronics and electric potential sensors embodied seamlessly in a garment worn for the comfort of the pregnant mother, our proposed technology will provide non-invasive continuous and reliable FECG monitoring to ensure safe foetal development. Partners: Dr. Jerry Luo, Cranfield University (PI); Rodrigo Aviles-Espinosa, University of Sussex (Co-I) |
TYPHON
| Project title | TYPHON: Polyglot and Hybrid Persistence Architectures for Big Data Analytics |
| Dates | January 2018 – December 2020 |
| Funding Source | H2020 ICT-16-2017 – RIA – European Commission |
| Amount | Edge Hill University share: 472,988 €; Total: 4,499,446 € |
| People Involved | Dr Yannis Korkontzelos, Dr Georgios Kontonatsios, Prof Nik Bessis |
| Description | A 3-year H2020 project focusing on evolving scalable architectures for persistence, analytics and monitoring of large volumes of hybrid data. The objective is to design and develop innovative text mining and big data processing methods to be integrated in data persistence architectures. Coordinator: The Open Group, UK Academic Partners: University of York, UK; University of L’Aquila, Italy; Centrum Wiskunde and Informatica, Netherlands; University of Namur, Belgium Industrial Partners: Volkswagen AG, Germany; GMV, Spain; Alpha Bank, Greece; Nea Odos, Greece; Institut fur angewandte Systemtechnik Bremen GmbH, Germany; Contemporary Learning Management Systems, Greece |
Assessing the Nature and Causes of Coastal Dune Evolution
| Project title | Assessing the Nature and Causes of Coastal Dune Evolution |
| Dates | 2018 – 2020 |
| Funding Source | Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) |
| Amount | Edge Hill University share: £10,000; Total: £354,354 |
| People Involved | Dr Huaizhong Zhang |
| Description | Partners: Dept of Geography, Edge Hill University; University of Nottingham; Ulster University |
CROSSMINER
| Project title | Developer-Centric Knowledge Mining from Large Open-Source Software Repositories (CROSSMINER) |
| Dates | January 2017 – December 2019 |
| Funding Source | H2020 ICT-10-2016 – RIA – European Commission |
| Amount | Edge Hill University share: 462,832 €; Total: 4,488,179 € |
| People Involved | Dr Yannis Korkontzelos, Prof Nik Bessis |
| Description | The aim of CROSSMINER is to deliver an integrated open-source platform that will support the development of complex software systems by enabling monitoring, in-depth analysis and evidence-based selection of open source components and facilitating knowledge extraction from large open-source software repositories. Coordinator: The Open Group, UK Academic Partners: University of York, UK; University of L’Aquila, Italy; Centrum Wiskunde and Informatica, Netherlands; Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece; Bitergia, Spain Industrial Partners: OW2 consortium, France; Frontendart, Hungary; Softeam, France; Unparallel, Portugal; Eclipse Foundation, Germany |
| News items | Project launch |
Boys Don't Cry
| Project title | Boys Don’t Cry |
| Dates | March 2016 |
| Funding Source | Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) |
| Amount | £ 9,300 |
| People Involved | Prof Mark Anderson |
CyberGatE
| Project title | CyberGatE |
| Dates | 8 December 2015 -17 February 2017 |
| Funding Source | Higher Education Academy |
| Amount | £ 79,951 |
| People Involved | Dr Chitra Balakrishna, Dr James Coleman, Prof Daniela Romano |
| Description | The shortage of cyber-security professionals is universal and on-going. Fresh graduates often do not possess the readiness to apply their skills to real-world scenarios as employers demand. This project bridges the skills-gap between theory and practice. Using innovative pedagogical practices (gamification and problem-based learning), a self-directed immersive learning environment would be produced to train employable cyber-security professionals. The resources will be hosted on the cloud: CyberGaTE using the innovative concept of ‘Classroom as a Service’. The project will engage employers, higher education institutions, students in UK and Europe to build and assess CyberGaTE’s effectiveness, disseminating good practice. |
| Publications |
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Cyber Security Knowledge Exchange
| Project title | Cyber Security Knowledge Exchange – Creation of industry-led problem based learning scenarios and a student-led model for knowledge exchange with SMEs |
| Dates | November 2014 – February 2016 |
| Funding Source | Higher Education Academy |
| Amount | £ 74,734 |
| People Involved | Dr Chris Beaumont |
Assisted Living Technology
| Project title | Assisted Living Technology – Review regarding education and qualifications to support implementation of Assisted Living Technology |
| Dates | September 2014 – April 2015 |
| Funding Source | NHS Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) |
| Amount | £ 6,000 |
| People Involved | Dr Dave Lyons, Prof Ella Pereira |
Business Insight 3
| Project title | Business Insight 3 |
| Dates | June 2014 – date |
| Funding Source | Knowledge Transfer Partnership – Innovate UK |
| Amount | £ 113,783 |
| People Involved | Prof Mark Anderson |
HistorySpace
| Project title | HistorySpace |
| Dates | January 2014 – date |
| Funding Source | Brock University |
| Amount | £ 18,000 |
| People Involved | Prof Mark Anderson, Prof Ella Pereira |
| Description | The aim of the project, in collaboration with Brock University in Canada, is to develop software that will allow historians to create three dimensional representations of historical buildings. |
Internally Funded Research & Innovation Projects
3D Parametric Modelling
| Project title | Creating a 3D Parametric Modelling Community Environment |
| Dates | July 2017 – January 2018 |
| Funding Source | Research Investment Fund (RIF) |
| Amount | £ 13,916.50 |
| People Involved | Prof Mark Anderson, Prof Ella Pereira, Mr Brian Farrimond |
| Description | The 3D Parametric Modelling Project at Edge Hill University Computer Science is developing applications that enable people who have no special skills in 3D modelling to create quickly complex, realistic and dynamic models. |
Human Activity and Behaviour Understanding: Dimensions of Human-Robot Social Interaction
| Project title | Human Activity and Behaviour Understanding: Dimensions of Human-Robot Social Interaction |
| Dates | June 2017 – August 2017 |
| Funding Source | Student Opportunity Fund (SOF) |
| Amount | £ 7,328.47 |
| People Involved | Dr Ardhendu Behera, Dr Hui Fang and Dr Georgios Kontonatsios |
| Description | Human-robot social interaction plays a significant role to help aged, work with children having autism and patients finding physically or mentally difficult to perform tasks. The students will be involved in designing and developing such a framework for NAO robots within the department of Computer Science. They will be exposed to core skills of programming, software development and testing, data analysis and representation as well as soft skills (e.g. teamwork, communication, presentation, etc.) which would enhance their employability. |
GATOR
| Project title | GATOR: Gait Analysis of Total Hip Replacement |
| Dates | April 2017 – March 2019 |
| Funding Source | Research Institute Thematic Award (RITA) |
| Amount | £23,959 |
| People Involved | Prof Ella Pereira |
| Description | Identification of gait related changes in well-functioning and fixed, well-functioning but loose and symptomatic and loose total hip replacements Internal Partners: Dr Ben Langley (PI), Dr Henrike Greuel, Dr Richard Page, The Department of Sport and Physical Activity; Prof Paola Dey, Dr Julie Kirby, Faculty of Health and Social Care; External Partners: Mr Chris Whelton, Professor Tim Board, Dr Stewart Morrison, Dr Mary Cramp, Wrightington, Wigan & Leigh NHS Foundation Trust. |
SmartPCI
| Project title | SmartPCI |
| Dates | December 2016 – May 2017 |
| Funding Source | Research Investment Fund (RIF) |
| Amount | £ 15,000 |
| People Involved | Prof Ella Pereira, Mr Besim Mustafa |
| Description | Proof of concept study for developing and delivering PCI as SaaS. Partners: Prof Simon Rogers, Evidence-Based Practice Research Centre (EPRC) |
Adaptive User Interface: Design and Development of an Eye-based Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) for People with varying Severity of Disabilities
| Project title | Adaptive User Interface: Design and Development of an Eye-based Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) for People with varying Severity of Disabilities |
| Dates | October 2016 – September 2018 |
| Funding Source | Research Institute Thematic Award (RITA) |
| Amount | £ 24,112 |
| People Involved | Dr Ardhendu Behera |
| Description | The aim of this research to utilise this gaze behaviour for developing an interactive adaptive user interface which could be used by people with varying severity of the disabilities. The proposed research will focus on design and development of a gaze-contingent interface in which the amount of information presented to a user is automatically adjusted according to his/her information processing capability based on real-time eye-movement. Partners: Department of Psychology, Edge Hill University; Walton Centre NHS Trust; Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust; Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University |
Multi-disciplinary autism research: bridging the theory / practice gap
| Project title | Multi-disciplinary autism research: bridging the theory / practice gap |
| Dates | April 2016 – October 2017 |
| Funding Source | Research Institute Thematic Award (RITA) |
| Amount | £ 7,933.50 |
| People Involved | Prof Ella Pereira |
| Description | The primary objective of this project was to run a Catalyst event that brings together complementary knowledge and expertise around autism in order to address two of the PGMI themes: improving service delivery and improving professional practice. By involving the autism community, experts in the field and academics from education, health and social care, the Catalyst event presents a unique opportunity to explore ways in which collaborative research and knowledge production can evaluate the experience of individuals with autism. Internal Partners: Dr Fiona Hallet (PI), Faculty of Education; Dr Joanne Powell-Greig, department of Psychology; Prof Jeremy Brown, Evidence-Based Practice Research Centre (EPRC); Jennifer Kirton, EPRC; External Partners: The National Autistic Society; NHS Research & Development North West; Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust |
| Publications | YouTube Video |
Research for Respiratory Nurses: The Establishment of a Research Consortium
| Project title | Research for Respiratory Nurses: The Establishment of a Research Consortium |
| Dates | March 2016 – March 2017 |
| Funding Source | Research Institute Thematic Award (RITA) |
| Amount | £ 12,795.80 |
| People Involved | Prof Ella Pereira |
| Description | Partners: Dr Carol Kelly (PI), Applied Health & Social Care; Ms Hayley McKenzie, Applied Health & Social Care; Prof Sally Spencer, Post Graduate Medical Institute; Dr Dave Lynes, Faculty of Health and Social Care |
GENEActiv and Actigraph accelerometers in older adults
| Project title | GENEActiv and Actigraph accelerometers in older adults |
| Dates | January 2016 – December 2016 |
| Funding Source | Research Investment Fund (RIF) |
| Amount | £ 5,242 |
| People Involved | Dr Ardhendu Behera |
| Description | This proposed project aims to develop accurate and robust accelerometer activity mode and intensity thresholds to enable accurate measurement of free-living physical activity and sedentary behaviour in older adults. Partners: Department of Sport and Physical Activity, Edge Hill University |
Autonomous Intelligent Feature for Reducing Driver’s Interaction by Understanding their Behaviour Pattern
| Project title | Autonomous Intelligent Feature for Reducing Driver’s Interaction by Understanding their Behaviour Pattern |
| Dates | January 2016 – January 2017 |
| Funding Source | Research Investment Fund (RIF) |
| Amount | £14,920 |
| People Involved | Dr Ardhendu Behera |
| Description | The objective of the project is to develop a software solution for analysing and recognising activities of drivers. This is fundamental to in-vehicle cognitive technologies which will be a key component of how vehicles learn and reason to provide a better experience for the occupants and optimise its own performance. |
Having A Laugh
| Project title | Having A Laugh – Making Transcription of Historical Texts Fun |
| Dates | 9 November 2015 – 8 May 2016 |
| Funding Source | Research Investment Fund (RIF) |
| Amount | £ 10,034.21 |
| People Involved | Dr Mark Hall |
Developing a Virtual Arts Companionship of Person-Centred Dance Provision
| Project title | Developing a Virtual Arts Companionship of Person-Centred Dance Provision |
| Dates | October 2014 – June 2015 |
| Funding Source | Research Investment Fund (RIF) |
| Amount | £ 7,476.12 |
| People Involved | Prof Ella Pereira |
| Description | This project looked at person-centred care, dance and technology with the aim to combine these things to support older people to lead full and independent lives. Partners: Prof Vicky Karkou (PI), Department of Performing Arts, Edge Hill University |
PhD projects with external collaborations
Personalised Approach to IoT driven remote Monitoring and Management of Epilepsy
| PhD Project title | Personalised Approach to IoT driven remote Monitoring and Management of Epilepsy |
| Student | Sarah MchHale |
| Supervisory team | Prof Ella Pereira |
| Collaborator | The Walton Centre |
Understanding the impact of introducing climate modelling to a community of users
| PhD Project title | Understanding the impact of introducing climate modelling to a community of users |
| Student | Pradeep Hewage |
| Supervisory team | Dr Ardhendu Behera, Dr Marcello Trovati |
| Collaborator | Precision Decisions Ltd |
Social Media Data Analytics for Understanding Population Movement
| PhD Project title | Social Media Data Analytics for Understanding Population Movement |
| Student | Isa Inuwa-Dutse |
| Supervisory team | Dr Yannis Korkontzelos, Dr Mark Liptrott, Prof Francesco Rizzuto |
| Collaborator | Department of Law & Criminology, Edge Hill University |
Data Analytics & IoT
| PhD Project title | Data Analytics & IoT |
| Student | Oladotun Omosebi |
| Supervisory team | Prof Nik Bessis, Dr Yannis Korkontzelos, Dr Quanbin Sun |
| Collaborator | Dr Evangelos Pournaras, Prof Dirk Helbing – Computational Social Science, ETH Zurich |
Hospital Data Analytics for Business Intelligence
| PhD Project title | Hospital Data Analytics for Business Intelligence |
| Student | Jeffrey Ray |
| Supervisory team | Dr Marcello Trovati, Dr Huaizhong Zhang, Dr Georgios Kontonatsios |
| Collaborator | Alder Hey Children’s Hospital |
A vision-based approach for monitoring progression of functional recovery involving activity of daily living
| PhD Project title | A vision-based approach for monitoring progression of functional recovery involving activity of daily living |
| Student | Bappaditya Debnath |
| Supervisory team | Dr Ardhendu Behera, Dr Motonori Yamaguchi, Prof Mary O’Brien |
| Collaborator | Department of Psychology, Evidence-based Practice Research Centre – Edge Hill University |
lmproving the Performance of MANETs using Machine Learning
| PhD Project title | lmproving the Performance of MANETs using Machine Learning |
| Student | Yann Maret |
| Supervisory team | Dr Junyuan Wang, Prof Jean-Frederic Wagen, Prof Nik Bessis |
| Collaborator | Fribourg HES-SO: University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (Switzerland), armasuisse |
| Web links |