Global Research Partnership Centers
2008 Winner Profiles
The University of Oxford
Oxford, England
The University of Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. There are around 20,000 students at Oxford, including over 7,000 postgraduates. In 2006-07, Oxford won more research income from external sponsors than any other UK university, earning over £248.2 million. The combined value of Oxford’s spin-off companies has reached £2 billion. Oxford was ranked joint second in the world in the Times Higher Education Supplement’s World University Rankings 2007.
View the University of Oxford's presentation at the GRP Symposium
Dr. John Ockendon
Dr. John Ockendon is the Principal Investigator and inaugural director of the Oxford Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematics (OCCAM). He is a fellow of the Royal Society (UK), Research Director of the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (OCIAM), University Lecturer in Applicable Mathematics at Oxford University and a fellow of St. Catherine’s College, Oxford. After receiving a Ph.D. at St. John’s College, Oxford, he was made a fellow of St. Catherine’s College in 1965 and university lecturer in applicable mathematics in 1976. He has been research director of OCIAM since 1989 and he was made an advisory professor at Fudan University in 2001. He was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1999 and was awarded the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications’ Gold Medal in 2006. His work is centered on the application of innovative mathematical ideas to real-world problems.
KAUST Center Award: Oxford Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematics (OCCAM)
The Oxford Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematics (OCCAM) will be based on the use of innovative mathematics, novel numerical algorithms and powerful computers to foster and advance interdisciplinary research. It will rely on the talents of some of the best mathematicians around the world, and the international network that Oxford has built up over the past 40 years will be invaluable. Oxford’s research efforts in state-of-the-art algorithms, mathematics in industry, and mathematical biology have opened up many exciting new areas and given it unrivalled expertise in developing the concept of problem-driven study groups, which offer the best opportunities for innovative mathematical thinking.
At the heart of OCCAM will be a team of mathematical scientists working on an evolving suite of research projects. The first two years’ projects have been specified; thereafter, they will be selected in response to demand from KAUST and from OCCAM’s global networking activities. This research effort will be a crucial resource for the training program, enabling young researchers to gain hands-on experience working on problem-driven research in mathematical modeling and scientific computation. OCCAM also will enthuse such researchers in countries where there is no tradition of interdisciplinary mathematics to pursue challenges that are both intellectually exciting and practically relevant. The Center’s primary focus will be in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region, and OCCAM offers KAUST an unparalleled opportunity to become the university of choice throughout the region for students and faculty in applied and computational mathematics.
On a global scale, OCCAM will enhance the status of “problem-solving” mathematics, addressing a need highlighted in the forthcoming OECD Global Science Forum report Mathematics in Industry. Mathematical research has revolutionized areas ranging from search engines to oil recovery, yet problem-solving talent is going unrecognized and unused around the world; the Center’s main forté will be the identification and harnessing of this talent.
OCCAM will have a profound transformative effect at Oxford. The university’s community of applied and computational mathematicians will swell, its resources for overseas students will be boosted, and the partnership between KAUST and Oxford will offer an unparalleled opportunity to promote interdisciplinary mathematics around the world. The effects will be especially noticeable in those institutions in the many countries with which OCCAM will have special relationships and in which researchers have indicated their enthusiasm for this center. In particular, KAUST is urged to establish a mirrored lab to OCCAM to provide the basis for a lasting relationship between the two universities.