Nicholas Robert Jennings is a British computer scientist and the current Vice-Chancellor and President of

Loughborough University Loughborough University (abbreviated as ''Lough'' or ''Lboro'' for post-nominals) is a public research university in the market town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, England. It has been a university since 1966, but it dates back to 1909, when L ...

. He was previously the Vice-Provost for Research and Enterprise at

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

, the UK's first Regius Professor of Computer Science, and the inaugural Chief Scientific Adviser to the

UK Government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_es ...

National Security National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military atta ...

. His research covers the areas of AI, autonomous systems, agent-based computing and cybersecurity. He is involved in a number of startups including Aerogility, Contact Engine, Crossword Cyber Security, and Reliance Cyber Science. He is also an adviser to Darktrace, a member of the UK Government's AI Council, chair of the National Engineering Polic
Centre
and a council member for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Education and early life

Jennings was born in London. He grew up on the

Isle of Portland An isle is an island, land surrounded by water. The term is very common in British English. However, there is no clear agreement on what makes an island an isle or its difference, so they are considered synonyms. Isle may refer to: Geography * Is ...

in Dorset and attended

Weymouth Grammar School Weymouth can refer to: Places ;In the United Kingdom *Weymouth, Dorset, England :*Weymouth and Melcombe Regis (UK Parliament constituency) :*Weymouth and Portland, the abolished local government district :*Weymouth Bay :* Weymouth Beach :*Weymou ...

. He studied for an undergraduate degree in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

at the

University of Exeter The University of Exeter is a public university , public research university in Exeter, Devon, England, United Kingdom. Its predecessor institutions, St Luke's College, Exeter School of Science, Exeter School of Art, and the Camborne School of Min ...

and his PhD was from the Department of Electronic Engineering at

Queen Mary, University of London , mottoeng = With united powers , established = 1785 – The London Hospital Medical College1843 – St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College1882 – Westfield College1887 – East London College/Queen Mary College , type = Public researc ...

Research and career

His research is on developing AI systems for large-scale, open and dynamic environments. In particular, he focuses on endowing individual autonomous agents with the ability to act and interact in flexible ways and with building systems that contain both humans and software agents. He has been involved with deployments of systems in domains such as

business process management Business process management (BPM) is the discipline in which people use various methods to discover, model, analyze, measure, improve, optimize, and automate business processes. Any combination of methods used to manage a company's business pro ...

, smart energy systems,

sensor networks Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) refer to networks of spatially dispersed and dedicated sensors that monitor and record the physical conditions of the environment and forward the collected data to a central location. WSNs can measure environmental c ...

disaster response Disaster response is the second phase of the disaster management cycle. It consists of a number of elements, for example; warning/evacuation, search and rescue, providing immediate assistance, assessing damage, continuing assistance and the imme ...

telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

, citizen science and eDefence—and generally advocating the area of agent-oriented software engineering. His most recent project, ORCHID, developed the science of Human-Agent Collectives (HACs) in which humans and software agents collaborate in seamles
partnerships
In undertaking this research, he has attracted grant income of £33M, published more than 700 articles (with over 400 co-authors) and graduated over 50 PhD students (including two winners and one runner-up of the

British Computer Society Sir Maurice Wilkes served as the first President of BCS in 1957 BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, known as the British Computer Society until 2009, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in infor ...

(BCS)/CPHC Distinguished Dissertation Award.) He has over 90,000 citations in

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...

and an

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as winn ...

of 130. From 1988 he was at

, where he was a PhD student, lecturer, reader and professor. In 1999, he moved to the Department of Electronics and Computer Science at the

University of Southampton , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...

where he was the Deputy Head of Department, the Associate Dean (Research and Enterprise) for the Faculty of Engineering, Science and Maths, the Head of the Agents, Interaction and Complexity group and the Head of Department. He was appointed the UK's first

Regius Professor of Computer Science Regius may refer to: * Regius Professor, "Royal" Professorships at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Dublin * Raphael Regius (c.1440–1520), Venetian humanist * Henricus Regius (1598–1679), Dutc ...

in 2014. From 2010 to 2015, he was the UK Government's first Chief Scientific Advisor for National Security. In 2016, he moved to

Imperial College Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

to be the Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise), as well as a Professor of Artificial Intelligence. In 2021, he was appointed as the 9th Vice-Chancellor and President of

Awards

Jennings was appointed

Companion of the Order of the Bath Companion may refer to: Relationships Currently * Any of several interpersonal relationships such as friend or acquaintance * A domestic partner, akin to a spouse * Sober companion, an addiction treatment coach * Companion (caregiving), a caregive ...

(CB) in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to computer science and national security science. * * * * * * *''2007: Int. Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems Special Recognition Award'' for “Intelligent agents: theory and practice” in The Knowledge Engineering Review * * * * * * *2016: ''IJCAI-JAIR Best Paper Prize'' (Honourable Mention) for “Theoretical and practical foundations of large-scale agent-based micro-storage in the smart grid” in Journal of AI Research *2016: ''The Engineer’s “Collaborate to Innovate” Award'' for the ORCHID project *2018: ''Int. Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems Influential Paper Award'' for “Developing multiagent systems: the Gaia methodology” in ACM Trans. on Software Engineering and Methodology *2020: BCS Lovelace Medal

Fellowships

* * * * * * * * * *2018:

Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...

(FRSA) *2019: Fellow

City and Guilds of London Institute The City and Guilds of London Institute is an educational organisation in the United Kingdom. Founded on 11 November 1878 by the City of London and 16 livery companies – to develop a national system of technical education, the institute has ...

*2020: Honorary Fellow of the

Cybernetics Society The Cybernetics Society is a UK-based learned society that exists to promote the understanding of Cybernetics. The core activity of the Cybernetics Society is the organization and facilitation of scientific meetings, conferences, and social events ...

*2022:

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

Personal life

Jennings is married to Jo and they have two children. He is a keen sportsman—playing cricket for Bishops Waltham and managing a Waltham Wolves football team for 10 years

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jennings, Nick 1966 births Living people Scientists from London Alumni of the University of Exeter Alumni of Queen Mary University of London Academics of the University of Southampton Companions of the Order of the Bath Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Fellows of the British Computer Society Fellows of the Institution of Engineering and Technology Fellow Members of the IEEE Fellows of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Fellows of the SSAISB Members of Academia Europaea Academics of the Department of Computing, Imperial College London Artificial intelligence researchers English computer scientists British computer scientists People from the Isle of Portland Vice-Chancellors of Loughborough University