Automation of mathematical reasoning processes
A team of researchers from Edinburgh, Heriot Watt and Goldsmiths College London has been awarded over £1.6m to continue their work on the integration and interaction of multiple mathematical reasoning processes.
It is the fourth Platform Grant awarded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) since 2002. The EPSRC has provided £4,199,963 to the project since 2007 alone.
Platform Grants succeeded a series of EPSRC Rolling Grants that were continuous from 1982.
Overview
The grant supports essential infrastructure and exploration of a portfolio of activities that focus on the automation of mathematical representation and reasoning processes, including their analysis, development and interaction.
Participants from Edinburgh’s School of Informatics are: Dr David Aspinall, Professor Alan Bundy, Dr Alan Smaill, Dr Jacques Fleuriot and Dr Paul Jackson from the Mathematical Reasoning Group (aka DReaM Group), based in our Centre for Intelligent Systems and their Applications (CISA) and Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science (LFCS).
Holistic perspective
In their application for renewal, the research team wrote:
“The Platform Grant has already enabled us to collaborate and exchange ideas with the best researchers in the world; explore and test new ideas; develop adventurous grant proposals and win funding; consolidate the results of our research projects and secure the follow-on funding that enables the impact of our research to be fully realised; and help develop the next generation of research stars and leaders in our field.
“The renewal of the Platform Grant will enable us to maintain and strengthen the momentum that has been built up around this theme - in terms of basic research as well as applications.
“The former covers a spectrum of topics, including: cognitive aspects of theory formation; mathematical discovery and automatic theorem generation; ontology creation, repair and evolution; proof procedures; computability; proof planning; AI problem reformulation; computational creativity; and the visualisation of reasoning processes.
“The latter covers wide ranging applications such as: software verification; formal modelling of software intensive systems; security and privacy analysis and design; graphic design; videogame design; disaster recovery planning; and the modelling of healthcare processes; poetry and art.”
The current Platform Grant of £1,630,58 will run until October 2019.
“Our work is a unique blend of the techniques of artificial intelligence and theoretical computer science - we also believe we are unique in our holistic perspective of automated reasoning and mathematical discovery.”
Useful links
Centre for Intelligent Systems and their Applications (CISA)