Information School News

  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-...

We are Number One in the World for Library and Information Management We are thrilled to announce that we are Number One in the World for Library and Information Management in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2021 .  The QS World University Rankings by Subject 2021 cover a total of 51 disciplines, grouped into five broad subject areas. The QS World University Rankings by Subject are compiled annually to help prospective students identify the leading universities in a particular subject. Research citations, along with the results of major global surveys of employers and academics are used to rank universities.  Professor Val Gillet, Head of School, said: "It's a real honour to be back at the Number One position in the World Rankings for Library and Information Management. As a School, we have worked so hard to provide the best teaching and research environment for our students and colleagues, and I am thrilled to see this recognised. The last year has been a real cha...

As Head of the Information School, I would like to welcome all of those who are joining to study with us. I understand that this is a new start for you and I hope you have found your first few weeks with us to be beneficial. Like yourselves, this year is a new start for me too. It is the first year in my current term as Head of the Information School. I have been Head of the School previously, and I am excited to see that the School is still evolving to meet the needs of our students and employers with our cutting-edge courses and technological advances. That said, it’s not too much of a new start for me: After completing a degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge, I took a short term research post in the Department of Information Studies (as the Information School was then called). This post fueled my interest in the discipline and I took the MSc in Information Science and subsequent PhD. Having spent such a long time at this School, and in higher education in the UK, I am abl...

Professor Val Gillet and six other members of the Chemoinformatics Research Group are attending the 11th International Conference on Chemical Structures in Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands, May 27-31st 2018. This is the major international conference in the field, with over 200 delegates from more than 20 countries. As usual, the Sheffield Chemoinformatics Group is making a strong contribution to the meeting with one oral presentation (Matt Seddon) and three posters (Antonio de le Vega de Leon, Christina Founti and Gian Marco Ghiandoni). Professor Gillet is on the Scientific Advisory Board and is a member of the Poster Jury. The final session of the meeting on Chemoinformatics is dedicated to Prof. Peter Willett to celebrate his outstanding contribution to the field over 40 years. Val will chair this session and will open it by presenting some highlights of Peter’s career.

Last month University of Sheffield’s Information School was privileged to be the first University in the UK to host the prestigious iConference. Held at the end of March in Sheffield, in collaboration with Northumbria University, the iConference was attended by over 400 delegates from around the world and across the library and information field. This year’s theme focused on ‘Transforming Digital Worlds’ with keynote sessions from eminent figures in the information world including: Dr Lynn Silipigni Connaway (OCLC Research), Dr Susan Dumais, (Microsoft Research) and Professor Luciano Floridi, (Oxford Internet Institute). “The keynotes were real highlights of the iConference”, says Professor Gillet, Conference Chair and Professor of Chemoinformatics at the Information School. “We had three well-known figures in the field summarising their work and giving their perspectives on different aspects of the information field. The iSchools organisation often talks about the triad of in...

Matt Seddon, PhD student in the Chemoinformatics research group, has won the CINF Scholarship for Scientific Excellence at the American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco, April 2-6. The scholarship program of the Division of Chemical Information (CINF) is designed to reward graduate and postdoctoral students in chemical information and related sciences for scientific excellence. The award was made for his PhD work which he presented as a long abstract and in poster format: Global spectral and diffusion geometry descriptors of 3D molecular shape for virtual screening Authors: Matthew Seddon, David Cosgrove, Martin Packer and Val Gillet Matt also gave an oral presentation. Matt Seddon (second from right) and colleagues Matt's PhD is being funded by a BBSRC Industrial CASE Partnership Studentship in collaboration with AstraZeneca. He is supervised by Professor Val Gillet.