European Universities Benefit by $6 Million

Eight European universities will receive grants of advanced computer equipment worth a total of $6 million under the Rank Xerox University Grant Programme. The Rank Xerox programme is the third phase of the Xerox University Grant Programme.

Making the announcement to international press representatives, Roland Magnin said that the grant programme is designed to allow some of the most prestigious universities in the world to work with Rank Xerox advanced products to further develop systems architectures and applications. ‘This is necessary to increase the level of compatability among various systems, enabling users of many different office automation systems to share information on a greater scale,’ he said. 

Prestigious Universities 

The universities selected after detailed evaluation by Xerox and Rank Xerox scientists, executives and operating companies, are Linkoping University and Institute of Technology, Sweden; University of Edinburgh; University of Newcastle upon Tyne; L’Ecole des Mines, Paris: Technische Universitaet, Berlin; Politecnico di Milano; the Facultat D’Informatica de  Barcelona and Politecnic University of Madrid. 

Brian Randell, Professor of Computing Science at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne who was at the announcement, said the grant would have enormous impact on the progress of his faculty’s future research programmes.  

Advanced Hardware and Software 

Each grant consists of advanced computer hardware, together with the latest software operating environments. The equipment will be used for research and teaching by the computer science, medical, business and engineering faculties in areas including electronic publishing, document creation and management, computer-aided software engineering, decision support systems, artificial intelligence and expert systems. 

New Products 

The grants will include the recently announced Xerox 6085 and Xerox 1186 advanced professional workstations together with a ranpe of software operating environments. These will include ViewPoint, Xerox Development Environment (XDE) and Interlisp-D programming environment. 

High Calibre Response 

Roland Magnin said that the response to the programme had been of the highest calibre and told the audience: ‘Our systems products are at the forefront of technology. and I am very pleased that they will be used for university research projects in new and original applications. The programme will link participating universities and create an active users group to ensure co-operation and sharing of developments of common interest. Equally important it will forge close links between Rank Xerox and some of Europe’s premier universities and researchers.’ 

Worldwide Participation 

The total number of universities participating in the Xerox University Grant Scheme world-wide is 32, in a scheme now worth S30 million. 

[Photograph]

Professor Brian Randell (left) with Dr Jim Eve in the University of Newcastle’s computing laboratory

[A 1985 Newspaper Cutting – Folder 00-3568, Special Collections, Newcastle University Library]