ICSRiM – University of Leeds

The University of Leeds Interdisciplinary Centre for Scientific Research in Music (ICSRiM, www.ICSRiM.org.uk) specialises in multi- and inter-disciplinary research and involves members of staff from several Schools,including: Music,Computing, Electronic Engineering, Sport and Exercise Sciences, and many others, with external members from other academic institutions, freelance artists and industrial collaborators. A new physical centre was completed in the Music School building in 2003, with major funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England, Science Research Investment Fund and the University.

ICSRiM provides a venue for research and development in a wide range of interdisciplinary research areas, including: Analysis, encoding, transcription, restoration and preservation of musical information and symbolic music representation (including optical music recognition), creative human-computer interactions, interactive gesture music, virtual and augmented instruments, 3D motion analysis, modelling and simulation of expressive performances, digital media and cross-media processing and analysis.

The Centre operates under the directorship of Dr Kia Ng (http://www.kcng.org), Senior Lecturer in Computing and Music. Major active research projects include:

• CASPAR EC IST
• I-MAESTRO EC IST
• AXMEDIS EC IST
• YQA MIST, UK

The University of Leeds is one of the largest universities in the UK with a turnover of £250m a year. 33,000 students, of which 5,200 are overseas students from 140 countries, are currently attached to 700 different first-degree programmes and 330 postgraduate degree programmes, as well as to short courses programmes, supported by over 6,500 staff. An emphasis on innovative research and investment in high-quality facilities and first-rate infrastructure means that no fewer than 35 departments are rated internationally or nationally ‘excellent’.

Leeds is now among the top ten universities for research in the UK. With some 3,000 researchers including postgraduates, and an annual research income of more than £70m, of which 8.25% is from EU awards, it is internationally acknowledged as a centre of excellence in a wide range of academic and professional disciplines. Its broad research and skills base and superb facilities attract interest from major multinationals and small local businesses alike. Many of its research initiatives cross traditional subject boundaries and Leeds currently promotes projects through 58 inter-disciplinary centres and seven research schools.

The Library is one of the largest of its kind in the country, with over 2.7 million books, ejournals, special collections, manuscripts and 800 databases. It is involved in a variety of externally funded projects, of which the PERINE Infrastructure Cooperation Network project supported by the European Commission under its Access to Research Infrastructures activity within the Improving Human Research Potential and the Socio-Economic Knowledge Base of Framework 5. As a main objective, PERINE seeks to reveal information supporting educational research in Europe and to promote good practice in the management and use of information in the field.

In CASPAR, the Interdisciplinary Centre for Scientific Research in Music is working especially on the Contemporary arts testbed and on the data access methods.