York’s leading role in safety critical software partnership
Posted on 6 March 2008
The partners in the Government-backed consortium, which is launched today, are drawn from industry and the academic sector.
We expect to collaborate with the SEI [in the US] but to deliver unique capability in the UK
Professor John McDermid
BAE Systems’ Military Air Solutions business has been selected by the Ministry of Defence to lead the new Software Systems Engineering Initiative (SSEI) programme. The MoD has identified High Integrity and Safety Critical Software as ‘the critical enabling technology’ for modern defence platforms, network enabled capability and complex infrastructure.
The SSEI will be a ‘virtual team’ but the initial research work will have a strong presence in the Department of Computer Science at York. It will also involve the University spin-off company, YorkMetrics.
Management and research work is expected to take place across the UK in a range of organisations, including the University of York; IBM; MBDA; QinetiQ; Aerosystems International; YorkMetrics; the Systems Engineering Innovation Centre; Newcastle University; EDS, Selex Galileo, Oxford University and dstl.
Professor John McDermid, head of the Department of Computer Science at the University of York, will be SSEI’s Technical Director. He played an important role in persuading the Government to establish a UK counterpart to the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) set up 20 years ago by the US Department of Defense.
Professor McDermid said: "The SEI in the US has been very influential in the practice of software engineering globally - and not just in the defence sector. We expect to collaborate with the SEI, but to deliver unique capability in the UK.
"We expect that the SSEI will grow to provide services to the MoD and other government departments, and it will also provide education and training to government and industry."
ENDS