AVCN RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Lead: Professor Naeem Ramzan

AHSCE takes a multidisciplinary approach to develop Affective and Human Computing for Smart Spaces. Its mission is to create technologies that make environments more responsive to human needs and emotions, fostering quality of living and wellbeing through technology.

Lead: Dr Pablo Salva-Garcia

B5GHub is at the forefront of research in the EU and the UK, conducting cutting-edge R&D projects, developing and bringing to society the next generation network, connecting people across the world and reducing inequality.

Lead/Co-Lead: Professor Keshav Dahal/Dr Santiago Matalonga

DeLTA use data analytics to address global challenges for education, finance, healthcare, and business, promoting digital preparedness for future challenges and contribute to a more sustainable world.

Lead: Professor Muhammad Zeeshan Shakir

The Digital Connectivity & Innovation Centre (DCIC) at the University’s Ayr Campus is an innovation hub focused on 5G and future digital connectivity solutions. It was established with £1 million in funding from the Ayrshire 5G Innovation Region (A5GIR) project, which is part of the £38 million Innovation Regions programme funded by the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).

Lead: Professor James Riordan

The Drone Systems Lab at UWS is dedicated to developing intelligent and high-performance systems for autonomous drone services in security, transport, environmental monitoring, maritime, and precision agriculture

Lead: Dr Marco Gilardi

UWS CCT focuses on innovative and sustainable technical applications of creative computing technologies, including virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, gamification, and serious games, to industrial and societal issues aiming to better education, industry infrastructures, inclusion, well-being, and quality of living.

Name: Professor Keshav Dahal
Position: Director of AVCN/DelTA
Email: Keshav.dahal@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/keshav-dahal/

Name: Professor Naeem Ramzan
Position: Director of AVCN/ AHSC
Email: Naeem.Ramzan@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/naeem-ramzan/

Name: Professor Muhammad Zeeshan Shakir
Position: Director of DCIC
Email: Muhammad.Shakir@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/muhammad-zeeshan-shakir-shakir/

Name: Professor James Riordan
Position: Director of the Drone Systems Lab
Email: James.Riordan@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/james-riordan/

Name: Dr Marco Gilardi
Position: Lecturer and Director of UWS CCT
Email: Marco.Gilardi@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/marco-gilardi/

Name: Dr Santiago Matalonga
Position: Lecturer and CO-Lead of DelTA
Email: Santiago.Matalonga@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/santiago-matalonga-motta/

Name: Dr Pablo Salva Garcia
Position: Lecturer and Director of B5GHub
Email: Pablo.Salva-Garcia@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/pablo-salva-garcia/

Name: Dr Daune West
Position: Senior Lecturer
Email: Daune.West@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/daune-west/

Name: Dr Gavin Baxter
Position: Senior Lecturer
Email: Gavin.Baxter@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/gavin-baxter/

Name: Dr Soheeb Khan
Position: Senior Lecturer
Email: Soheeb.Khan@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/soheeb-khan/

Name: Dr Thomas Hainey
Position: Senior Lecturer
Email: Thomas.Hainey@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/thomas-hainey/

Name: Dr Ryan Gibson
Position: Senior Lecturer
Email: Ryan.Gibson@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/ryan-gibson/

Name: Dr Aboua Ange Kevin N'Da
Position: Lecturer
Email: AbouaAngeKevin.N'Da@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/aboua-nda/

Name: Dr Althaff Irfan Cader Mohideen
Position: Lecturer
Email: Althaff.Mohideen@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/althaff-irfan-cader-mohideen/

Name: Dr Ashraf Mahmud
Position: Lecturer
Email: Ashraf.Mahmud@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/asm-ashraf-mahmud/

Name: Dr Bikrant Koirala
Position: Lecturer
Email: Bikrant.Koirala@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/bikrant-koirala-2/

Name: Dr Graeme Truslove
Position: Lecturer
Email: Graeme.Truslove@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/graeme-truslove/

Name: Dr Paul Keir
Position: Lecturer
Email: Paul.Keir@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/paul-keir/

Name: Dr Sajjad Bagheri
Position: Lecturer
Email: Sajjad.Bagheri@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/sajjad-bagheri-baba-ahmadi/

Name: Mr Duncan Thomson
Position: Lecturer
Email: Duncan.Thomson@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/duncan-thomson/

Name: Dr Jacob Koenig
Position: Lecturer
Email: Jacob.Koenig@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/jacob-koenig/

Name: Dr Jas Semrl
Position: Lecturer
Email: Jas.Semrl@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/jas-semrl/

Name: Dr Joanna Olszewska
Position: Lecturer
Email: Joanna.Olszewska@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/joanna-olszewska/

Name: Dr Mohammad Alselek
Position: Lecturer
Email: Mohammad.Alselek@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/mohammad-alselek-2/

Name: Dr Muhammad Ayat
Position: Lecturer
Email: Muhammad.Ayat@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/muhammad-ayat/

Name: Dr Raman Singh
Position: Lecturer 
Email: Raman.Singh@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/raman-singh/

Name: Dr Ravi Koirala
Position: Lecturer
Email: Ravi.Koirala@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/ravi-koirala/

Name: Dr Shahid Awan
Position: Lecturer
Email: Shahid.Awan@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/shahid-awan/

Name: Dr Shahriar Al-Ahmed
Position: Lecturer
Email: Shahriar.Al-Ahmed@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/shahriar-al-ahmed-2/

Name: Mr Steve Eager
Position: Lecturer
Email: Steve.Eager@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/steve-eager/

Name: Dr Tahir Mahmood
Position: Lecturer
Email: Tahir.Mahmood@uws.ac.uk
PURE profile link: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/tahir-mahmood/

• Professor Jose M. Alcaraz-Calero
• Professor Qi Wang
• Professor Zeeshan Pervez
• Professor Henry Wang
• Professor Abbes Amira
• Professor Christopher Grecos
• Professor Pablo Casaseca
• Dr Chunbo Luo

• EPSRC, DIRECT-6G: Distributed Edge Intelligence for Real-Time Computation and Communication with Integrated Terrestrial and Non-Terrestrial Networks in 6G, £606k, 2025-2029
• Innovate UK, “KTP - SME - Booth Welsh” £321k, 2025-2028
• Innovate UK, “KTP - SME - KTP - SME - E.D.C. (Scotland) Limited” £268k, 2025-2028
• Natural Environment Research Council, FLORA-SAGE - Federated Learning Optimised for Remote Assessment of Species in Agricultural Grassland Ecosystems, £381k, 2025-2028
• Innovate UK, “KTP - Large - Kooltech Limited” £322k, 2024-2027
• Innovate UK, “KTP - SME - Lochlie Construction Limited” £271k, 2024-2027
• Innovate UK, “KTP - SME - Forte Engineering” £274k, 2024-2027
• Innovate UK, “KTP - SME - Smartify Holdings Ltd” £214k, 2025-2027
• Innovate UK, “KTP- SME PG paper Ltd” £300k, 2022-2027
• North Ayrshire Council, 5GIR-Large Project- DCIC-Project, £1.2m, 2024-2026
• Fuze Management Services Ltd - trading as 'The VR Hive', “AI enabled smart learning environment”, £43k, 2023-2026
• Academy of Medical Sciences, Perspectives and Challenges in the Adoption of AI-Based Quality Control in Manufacturing SMEs: A Comparative Study of the UK and South Africa, £15k, 2025-2026
• EU Horizon Europe, 6G-PATH: 6G Pilots and Trials Through Europe, £454k, 2024-2026
• British Council, From Workplace to World Stage: Flexible Transnational Degree Pathways in Digital Technologies for Manufacturing, £25k, 2025-2026
• Innovate UK, “KTP - SME - Peter Equi and Sons Limited” £255k, 2024-2026
• Innovate UK, “KTP - SME - Smartify Holdings Ltd” £193k, 2023-2025
• Innovate UK, “KTP-SME WellFish Diagnostics Ltd” £195k, 2022-2025
• Fuze Management Services Ltd - trading as 'The VR Hive', “6G enabled holographic communication in future metaverse”, £43k, 2022-2025
• Smartify Holdings, Generative AI Storytelling for Cultural Heritage - Innovate UK grant, £14k, 2025-2025
• Scottish Funding Council, Exploring User-Centred Design for a Two-Way British Sign Language Translation, 2025-2025.
• EU Horizon 2020, INCODE, £403k, 2022-2025
• EU Horizon Europe, HE RIGOUROUS, £407k, 2022-2025
• EU Erasmus+, eACCESS – EU-Asia Collaboration for aCcessible Education in Smart Power Systems (eACCESS), Total fund Euro 1m (Euro 156k for UWS activities), 2020-2024.
• Carnegie PhD studentship, £69k, 2021-2024
• Thales PhD studentship, £61k, 2021-2024
• Royal Society of Edinburgh, “Source code transformation for security and performance”, £10k, 2022-2024
• Innovate UK, “KTP-Fuze Management Services Ltd” £236k, 2022-2024
• Arceptive Limited, Subject matter expert advice on computer vision techniques for analysis of digital micorscote samples of asbestos fibres, £3.5k 2024-2024
• Qatar Foundation, “mmW-based Future Dense Networks with UAV Backhauling: Channel Characterization, Perf”, £69k, 2021-2024
• EU Erasmus+, BIPER – Total fund Euro 250k (Euro 47k for UWS activities), 2021-2023.
• Fluid System Technologies (Scotland) Ltd, Frameworks for deployment and assessment of serious games industrial training assisted by AI, £7k, 2021-2023
• Scottish Enterprise, SE HGSP Seizing the opportunity to revolutionise the accuracy of AI enabled Search & Rescue Operations while dramatically reducing costs, £75k, 2023-2023
• British Council, PAK-UK Education Gateway Mobility Partnership for Faculty, £32k, 2023-2023
• Innovate UK, AKTP - SME - Smartify Holdings Limited, £31k, 2022-2023
• Innovate UK, “KTP-Kube Networks Ltd” £191k, 2021-2023
• Innovate UK, “KTP-Phoenix Instinct Limited 2” £287k, 2021-2023
• Innovate UK, “KTP-SME-Fog Systems” £233k, 2021-2023
• Innovate UK, QuantumBlockVault: Post-Quantum Resistant Blockchain for Securing Business-critical Data, £32k, 2022-2023
• Scottish Funding Council, IICF - A feasibility study and proof of concept for developing an extended reality XR, £31k, 2022-2023
• EU Erasmus+, SUNSpACe – SUstainable developmeNt Smart Agriculture Capacity, Total fund Euro 1 million (Euro 164k for UWS activities), 2019-2022.
• EU Erasmus+ “ATHIKA- Advanced Technologies in Health Innovation”, Euro 200k for UWS activities, 2019-2022.
• Innovate UK, Virtual Education Technologies – An Eco-Friendly Solution for Global Education Phase 1, £25k, 2021-2022.
• Innovate UK, Development of Deep Learning based Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Platform for Ransomware Attack Detection, £24k, 2022-2022.
• Innovate UK, “KTP-Hart Lifts Ltd”, £185k, 2019-2022.
• Innovate UK, “KTP - SME - Little’s Ltd” £183k, 2019-2022.
• Innovate UK, “KTP -SME- Golden Casket Group Ltd” £173k, 2019-2021.
• Innovate UK, “KTP- MODO Systems Ltd.”, £165k, 2018-2021
• Innovate UK, “KTP- BRS Technology”, £185k, 2019-2021.
• Fundacion Seneca, “Cognitive Management of Identities for Muti-tenant 5G Networks”, funded under National Programme for Research Talent and their employability call, Euro 68k for Fellowship Holder, 2019-2021
• BT, AI enabled coverage hole detection for wireless networks, funded under VP Strategic fund matched with BT, £96k, 2018-2021
• Scottish Funding Council, IV Soft Skills Training in VR – Gamification and Platform – Phase 1 – Design, £5k, 2021-2021.
• EU H2020, “SliceNet– End-to-End Cognitive Network Slicing and Slice Management Framework in Virtualised Multi-Domain, Multi-Tenant 5G Networks”, Euro 700k for UWS activities, 2017-2020.
• InnovateUK, Newton Fund, Personalised Service Assistant for Journey Planner, £60k for UWS activities, 2018-2020.
• GCRF (Global Challenges Research Fund) “NetDiploma project”, Networking project with Northumbria University, Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), 2018-2020.
• EU Erasmus Mundus Project “SmartLink”, Project coordinator for the consortium of 25 EU and South Asian university partners, Euro 695k for UWS activities, 2014-2019.
• EU Erasmus Mundus Project “gLINK”, Partner in the consortium of 18 partners, Euro 246k for UWS activities, (2014-2019)
• Innovate UK, “KTP - Lumen Limited” £240k, 2017-2019
• Cancer research UK, “Audio technology to detect lung cancer earlier” £40k, 2017-19
• Innovation Centre for Sensor and Imaging Systems (CENSIS), UK, and Thales UK, "Smart Unmanned Aerial System for Real-Time Object Detection", in collaboration with Police Scotland, UK, funded under CENSIS open call, £100k for UWS activities, 2018-2019.
• CSI “Emotional Gym: Interactive Bike, Lorretto housing”, Wheatley Group, £50k, 2017-2019
• Scottish Funding Council, “Utilizing Social Media Trends to Proactively Prevent Cyberattack”, funded under PhD Studentship, £55k, 2016-2019
• Zayed University, “Privacy-aware Data Curation for IoT Devices”, funded under RIF, £14k for UWS activities, 2016-2019
• Energy technology Partnership (ETP), “Validation of advanced control and protection solutions for active integration of renewables through high fidelity hardware-in-the-loop simulation, with Strathclyde University, 2015-2018
• EU H2020, “SELFNET – Framework for Self-organized Network Management in Virtualized and Software Defined Networks”, Euro 700k for UWS activities, 2015-2018.
• EU Erasmus+, UK- Algeria Advanced Computing Framework, Euro 163k, 2017-2018.
• Digital Health Institute “Smartcough”, With University of Edinburgh, Cirrus Logic (former Wolfson Microelectronics), and CHSS. funded with £90k, 2015-2018
• UKRI, Digital Dairy Value Chain for South West Scotland & Cumbria, Strength in Places, UWS – Research Organisation, £2.9m, 2021-2026

• University of Strathclyde - Academic – Established
• Edinburgh Napier University - Academic – Established
• University of Northumbria - Academic – Established
• Hamburg Applied University (HAW) - Academic – Established
• Lodz University of Technology (Poland) - Academic – Established
• Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) - Academic – Established
• University of Burgas (Bulgaria) - Academic – Established
• University of Evora Portugal - Academic – Emerging
• University of Lyon 2, France - Academic – Established
• Corvinus University of Budapest - Academic – Established
• Ukraine State University of Railway Transport (UkrSURT) – Academic – Established
• Chiang Mai University Thailand - Academic – Established
• Khon Kaen University Thailand - Academic – Established
• Pokhara University (Nepal) - Academic – Established
• Kantipur Engineering College (Nepal) - Academic – Established
• Royal University of Bhutan (Bhutan) - Academic – Established
• Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia (Indonesia) - Academic – Established
• Soegijapranata Catholic University (Indonesia) - Academic – Established
• NED University, Pakistan - Academic – Established
• Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Dhanbad, India - Academic – Established
• Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Science - Academic – Emerging
• Wuxi Taihu University - Academic – Emerging
• CENSIS - Innovation Centre for Sensing, Imaging and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies - Third Sector / Community - Established
• Data Lab - Innovation Centre for data and AI -- Third Sector / Community - Established
• Digital Health & Care Institute - - Third Sector / Community - Established
• National Air Traffic Systems (NATS) - Industry / Commercial - Established
• Police Scotland - Public Sector - - Established
• MODO Systems Ltd - Industry / Commercial - Established
• BRS Technology Ltd - Industry / Commercial – Established
• Golden Casket Group - Industry / Commercial - Established
• Little's Chauffeur Drive Ltd - Industry / Commercial - Established
• Hart Lifts Ltd - Industry / Commercial - Established
• Wheatley Care - Industry / Commercial – Established
• Ayrshire council - Public Sector - - Established
• Little’s Ltd- Industry- Commercial - Established
• PG Paper Ltd -Industry - Commercial - Established
• WellFish Tech Ltd – Industry- Commercial – Established
• Smartify Ltd - Industry -Commercial – Established
• The VR Hive - Industry - Commercial – Established
• The Scottish Crannog Centre - Third Sector / Community– Established