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Welcome to new students from Head of School Prof Val Gillet

 As Head of the Information School, I would like to welcome all of you who are beginning your studies with us. This is a new start for you and I hope that you settle into your student life in Sheffield well.

During your time here, we will provide an outstanding academic education centred around research-led teaching. We are recognised nationally and internationally for our world-class research, our excellence in teaching, and, importantly, the achievements of our graduates who go on to a whole range of positions across the information and data professions.

As a School, we have seen our numbers of students (and subsequently, staff) grow rapidly over the last few years. The growth of the School reflects our outstanding reputation as recognised in the QS World Rankings By Subject (First in the World in 2022 and 2021) and our excellent result in the Research Excellence Framework 2021, a national assessment of research in UK universities, where 91% of our research was rated world-leading or internationally excellent and the impact of our research was rated 7th nationally.

For you, this means that you have more peers to work with, more ideas to share and learn from, and more opportunities to build lasting relationships with other Information Professionals after your studies.

We are proud of our research, our teaching and our rankings. We are also proud of our colleagues, past and present, our University, our reputation and our impact. However, the true impact of our School and our teaching is our students and alumni who go on to do brilliant things in both academia and in industry.

This year will move so quickly, and you’ll be challenged in many ways, but we hope it will be a very rewarding and enjoyable year. I wish you a successful time in Sheffield, and I look forward to meeting many of you over the coming year.

Professor Val Gillet
Professor of Chemoinformatics & Head of School

September 2022

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