The £29m, five-year project will harness the best informatics and computing science talent - encompassing next generation internet, artificial intelligence, software engineering and neuroscience - from 10 universities, together with investors.

Scotland is a key player in this emerging sector, and home to many of the world's leading researchers in the field. Under the scheme, those taking part will be encouraged to collaborate on research and commercialise emerging ideas, including creating new companies.

The Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (Sicsa) will be supported by regular networking events. It will also support entrepreneurial education of students and researchers, through mentoring, on-line learning facilities and university bursaries.

Colin Adams, (right) director of commercialisation at the University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics, said: "Most new companies are started by young people, with great ideas, who are given strong support in bringing those ideas to market.

"Scotland punches above its weight in computing expertise - we have a massive pool of talent in our universities and a strong track record in bringing technical innovation to market. I hope this initiative will help to harness the next generation of young creative entrepreneurs."

Sicsa is supported by the Scottish Funding Council, Scottish Enterprise, and the European Regional Development Fund. The pool has been founded by the Universities of Aberdeen, Abertay, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews, Stirling and Strathclyde, along with Heriot-Watt University and the Robert Gordon University.

Sicsa's current research themes are focused on:
         * Next Generation Internet. As the Internet evolves towards ubiquity, research targets include security and trust, programmability, manageability, and mobility. Theme leader: (right) Saleem Bhatti, St Andrews.
   
     * Multimodal Interaction Personal ubiquitous interfaces require research enabling multiple, rich communication channels between people and vast bodies of information. Theme leader: (left) Stephen Brewster, Glasgow

    * Modelling and Abstraction Processing ever-larger volumes of data raises new challenges in the development and use of predictive models of complex systems of interacting elements. Theme leader (right) Jane Hillston, Edinburgh.

    * Complex Systems Engineering New systems of systems must be engineered to meet the needs of industry and society, operating robustly within an often hostile external environment. Theme leader: Greg Michaelson, Heriot Watt
 

Web: SICSA