School of Informatics 

at the University of Edinburgh

The new building for Informatics

The location of Edinburgh

The School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh is a world-class research institute. The school was formed by combining the previous Departments of Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, and Cognitive Science.  These three disciplines are seamlessly integrated in the school and are given a general designation "Informatics". The school is well known for its research  in the areas of programming languages, algorithms, theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, databases, etc. It is one of the first institutes that conducts research and teaching in artificial intelligence. SML, a functional programming language, and Prolog, a logic programming language, were also developed in the School. Edinburgh came top for Computing Science and Informatics in the UK in the last two RAEs, 2001 and 2008 (click here for details), above the computer science departments at Cambridge, Oxford and Imperial College, etc. The School has been blessed by recipients of  Turing Award (computer-science equivalent of Nobel Prize) and Godel Prize, etc, and currently has on its faculty fellows of Royal Academy as well as ACM/IEEE fellows. Although there are no published international comparisons of computer science departments, Edinburgh is generally regarded as one of the best departments in the world. (click here for details)  

The University of Edinburgh was founded in 1583,

Old College, one of the early constructions in Edinburgh University

and has been being a  world-renowned university since then. In her 400+ years history emerged a large array of world-class scientists, philosophers, writers, etc. Among them are philosopher David Hume, historian William Robertson, and thinkers Adam, who led the "Scottish Enlightenment" that has become the basis of moral philosophy;

Edinburgh from Calton Hill

Charles Darwin, who proposed the theory of evolution;   James Clerk Maxwell,  the founder of  electromagnetism theory;  Alexander Graham Bell who invented telephone; James Hutton, the  father of modern geology; Sir Walter Scott, a famous poet; and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who is known for his  detective stories. Their contributions have gone way beyond the United Kingdom and benefited the whole world. 

The School of Information Science in Edinburgh University has PhD (three-year) and Master (one-year) programme (click here for details, including application forms).

Some Chinese students of the school are educating Prince  Philip

The School encourages outstanding Chinese students to study in the school.  Graduates from the school have often been employed as professors at top-ranked universities in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe, or work at   world-class research institutes.

A group of Chinese students,  together with the Minister of Education, China

  Chinese alumni  include, for example,  Peisu Xia (the pioneer of computer science in China), the president of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the director of the software institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as a number of academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The school provides full scholarships for outstanding PhD students, and many professors may support their students from their own research grants (click here for details). China's Ministry of Education also encourages Chinese students to study in Edinburgh and offers scholarships ( click here for details). In addition, the students usually have no difficulties in getting a visa to study in Edinburgh. A recent policy introduced to Scotland allows overseas graduates to work in Scotland for at least two years even without a work permit (click here for details).

A glimpse of Scotland

The School of Informatics is located in the city centre of Edinburgh. Edinburgh is the Capital of Scotland, and is also one of the social, cultural centres in the United Kingdom.

Edinburgh night

She is a historical city near the ocean ,  well known for her  beautiful scenery, safety, and it is considered one of the most liveable cities in the world. Edinburgh is known not only for its splendid history of sciences and arts, but is also a modern international city (taking "Harry Potter" as an example, who was  "created" at Edinburgh). Edinburgh is also known for the Festival that attracts artists from all over the world every summer.