Professor Peter Edwards

PhD CITP FBCS FIET FRSA

Principal & Vice-Chancellor

51cg

Email Address: p.edwards@abdn.ac.uk
School/Department: Principal's Office

Biography

Professor Peter Edwards became Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the 51cg on 1 November 2025.

He joined the 51cg as a postdoctoral fellow in Computing Science in October 1988, before moving into his first academic position as a Lecturer in 1991.

His academic research focuses on the design of intelligent information infrastructures that promote transparency and accountability in computational systems, on which he has published widely. Much of this work has been interdisciplinary in nature, involving collaborations across fields including medicine, law, geography, transport studies, food science, and design. He has served as Principal Investigator on major UK Research Council awards valued at over £20m, including the eSocial Science Research Node PolicyGrid (ESRC, 2006–2012) and the UK Digital Economy Research Hub dot.rural (EPSRC, 2009–2015).

In his nearly four decades at the University he has also held a range of senior leadership roles, including Head of Computing Science, Head of the College of Physical Sciences Graduate School, Director of the Northern Research Partnership Graduate School (a collaboration among the Universities of Aberdeen, Dundee, and Robert Gordon), Head of the School of Natural and Computing Sciences, Vice-Principal for Regional Engagement, and Acting Senior Vice-Principal.

Professor Edwards is Chair of the University Senate, a member of the University Court and a member of the Board of the University's Development Trust SCIO. His external roles include membership of the Board of Opportunity North East, the Aberdeen City Region Deal Joint Committee, and the North East Scotland Investment Zone Joint Committee.

He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society, the Institution of Engineering & Technology and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.

Principal's Office Contacts

Heather Crabb - Head of Principal's Office

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Email:

J Ross Anderson - Governance & Executive Support Officer

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Julia Garrow - Personal Assistant to Principal and Vice-Chancellor

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Fiona Beedie - Admin Assistant (8.30am to 1.45pm)

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Email:

Qualifications

PhD Computational Chemistry
1990 - University of Leeds

Memberships and Affiliations

Internal Memberships

Senate - Chair
University Court - Trustee
Governance & Nominations Committee - Member
51cg Development Trust SCIO - Trustee

External Memberships

Opportunity North East - Director
Aberdeen City Region Deal Joint Committee - Member
North East Scotland Investment Zone Joint Committee - Member
North East Scotland Regional Economic Partnership - Member
Universities Scotland Main Committee - Member
Universities Scotland Lead Member for Regional Economic Development & Engagement
Cruickshank Botanic Gardens Trust - Chair
Strachan & Duthie Webster Trust - Trustee
Sir John Marnoch Memorial Trust - Trustee
The Robert Nicol Trust - Trustee
C B Davidson Bequest - Trustee
Newbattle Abbey College Trust - Director

Latest Publications

Embedding AI-Enabled Data Infrastructures for Sustainability in Agri-Food: Soft-Fruit and Brewery Use Case Perspectives
2024 - Published
Markovic, M., Li, A. H., Ayall, T. A., Watson, N. J., Bowler, A. L., Woods, M., Edwards, P., Ramsey, R., Beddows, M. A., Kuhnert, M., Leontidis, G.
Sensors, vol. 24, no. 2024, 7327
Contributions to Journals: Articles
- [ONLINE] DOI:
- [OPEN ACCESS]
Farm Explorer: A Tool for Calculating Transparent Greenhouse Gas Emissions
2024 - Published
Markovic, M., Germano, S., Garijo, D., Edwards, P., Li, A., Ayall, T. A., Ramsey, R., Leontidis, G.
Contributions to Journals: Conference Articles
- [ONLINE]
- [OPEN ACCESS]
Model pruning enables localized and efficient federated learning for yield forecasting and data sharing
2024 - Published
Li, A. H., Markovic, M., Edwards, P., Leontidis, G.
Expert Systems with Applications, vol. 242, pp. 1-12
Contributions to Journals: Articles
- [ONLINE] DOI:
- [OPEN ACCESS]
- [ONLINE]
Model Pruning Enables Localized and Efficient Federated Learning for Yield Forecasting and Data Sharing
2023 - Published
Li, A., Markovic, M., Edwards, P., Leontidis, G.
Working Papers: Preprint Papers
- [ONLINE]
- [ONLINE] DOI:
- [OPEN ACCESS]
Using Knowledge Graphs to Unlock Practical Collection, Integration, and Audit of AI Accountability Information
2022 - Published
Naja, I., Markovic, M., Edwards, P., Pang, W., Cottrill, C., Williams, R.
IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 74383 - 74411
Contributions to Journals: Articles
- [ONLINE] DOI:
- [OPEN ACCESS]

View My Publications

Research

Research Overview

Intelligent information infrastructures that promote transparency and accountability in computational systems. My interests span models of provenance, trust, information quality, transparency and accountability and the realisation of these in the context of the web, the internet of things, and autonomous systems. My work has a strong applications focus in areas as diverse as food safety, transport, smart cities, logistics and healthcare; interdisciplinary collaborations have included Medicine, Law, Geography, Transport Studies, Food Science, and Design.

Research Areas

Computing Science

Supervising

View Research Area

Research Specialisms

Knowledge and Information Systems
Information Management
Internet Technologies
Artificial Intelligence
Intelligent Systems

Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is , published under the licence.

Past Research

Enhancing Agri-Food Transparent Sustainability - EATS
(Aberdeen, Dundee, SRUC, Nottingham)
EPSRC: EP/V042270/1, 2022-2024

Funding and Grants

Enhancing Agri-Food Transparent Sustainability - EATS
EPSRC, 2022-2024

PROoFD IT!: Provenance of Food Delivery through IoT
EPSRC Internet of Food Things Network+, 2019

Realising Accountable Intelligent Systems - RAInS
EPSRC: EP/R033846/1, 2019-2022

Trusted Things & Communities: Understanding & Enabling a Trusted IoT Ecosystem
EPSRC: EP/N028074/1, 2016-2019

Trust & Privacy in Smart City IoT Solutions
Royal Society of Edinburgh - Taiwan Ministry of Science & Technology, 2017-2019

The Food Sentiment Observatory: Exploiting New Forms of Data to Help Inform
Policy on Food Safety & Food Crime Risks (with Food Standards Scotland)
ESRC: ES/P011004/1, 2017-2018

Smart Routing
Innovate UK, 2016-2017

Food Safety Assurance: Combining Provenance & The Internet of Things
IT as a Utility Network+ & Food Standards Agency, 2015-2016

Social Media: Developing Understanding, Infrastructure & Engagement
ESRC: ES/M001628/1, 2014-2016

dot.rural Digital Economy Research Hub
EPSRC (with AHRC, ESRC, MRC): EP/G066051/1, 2009-2015

Trusted Tiny Things
EPSRC IT as a Utility Network+, 2013-2014

Creativity @ Home Award
EPSRC, 2012-2014

A Trusted Mobile Platform for Self-Management of Chronic Illness in Rural Areas - TRUMP
EPSRC - India DST: EP/J00068X/1, 2011-2014

SmartTourism
SFC Horizon Fund, 2011-2014

PolicyGrid II: Supporting Interdisciplinary Evidence Bases for Scientific
Collaboration and Policy Making
ESRC: ES/F029713/1, 2009-2012

BEhaviour for Well-being, Environment and Life - BE-WEL
ESRC (with BBSRC, MRC), 2009-2010

eInfrastructure for Social Sciences
ESRC: RES-149-25-1063, 2006-2009

SwarmCloud
JISC, 2008-2009

PolicyGrid: Semantic Grid Tools for Rural Policy Development & Appraisal
ESRC: RES-149-25-1027, 2006-2009

Access Grid Node Competition - Equipment Award`
ESRC, 2006

Pilot Semantic Grid Service for Environmental Modelling
ESRC: RES-149-25-0011, 2003-2005

Teaching

Teaching Responsibilities

I am not currently involved in teaching activity, other than PhD supervision.

Publications

Update

51cg

Biography

Principal's Office Contacts

Qualifications

Memberships and Affiliations

Latest Publications

Embedding AI-Enabled Data Infrastructures for Sustainability in Agri-Food: Soft-Fruit and Brewery Use Case Perspectives

Farm Explorer: A Tool for Calculating Transparent Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Model pruning enables localized and efficient federated learning for yield forecasting and data sharing

Model Pruning Enables Localized and Efficient Federated Learning for Yield Forecasting and Data Sharing

Using Knowledge Graphs to Unlock Practical Collection, Integration, and Audit of AI Accountability Information

Research Overview

Research Areas

Computing Science

Research Specialisms

Past Research

Funding and Grants

Teaching Responsibilities

A Multi-faceted Provenance Solution for Science on the Web

Using a virtual machine environment to support simulation on the grid

Supporting Simulations on the Grid using Workflows and Virtual Machine

e-Social Science and Evidence-Based Policy Assessment: Challenges and Solutions

ourSpaces - A Social Semantic Web Environment for eScience

Using the Social Semantic Web to Support eSocial Science

A Semantic Workflow Mechanism to Realise Experimental Goals and Constraints

eScience Support for Evidence-Based Policy Making

Enhancing Workflow with a Semantic Description of Scientific Intent

Instance Based Clustering of Semantic Web Resources

Evaluating an ontology-driven WYSIWYM interface

Using the semantic grid to support evidence-based policy assessment

Modelling a Receiver's Position to Persuasive Arguments

Data Provenance, Evidence-Based Policy Assessment, and e-Social Science

Persuasive Effects of Embodied Conversational Agent Teams

A Flexible Interface to Community-Driven Metadata

A Semantic Grid Service for Experimentation with an Agent-Based Model of Land-Use Change

Using the Grid to Support Evidence-Based Policy Assessment in Social Science

Using WYSIWYM to Create an Open-ended Interface for the Semantic Grid

Semantic Support for Computational Land-Use Modelling

An Ontology for Experimentation with a Social Simulation of Land Use Change

Semantic support for computational land-use modelling

Learning Meta-Descriptions of the FOAF Network

Context-Aware Personalised Service Delivery

FEARLUS-G: A Semantic Grid Service for Land-Use Modelling

GraniteNights - A Multi-Agent Visit Scheduler Utilising Semantic Web Technology

Intelligent Information Agents: The AgentLink Perspective

An Empirical Investigation of Learning From the Semantic Web

DAGGER: Instance Selection for Combining Multiple Models Learnt from Disjoint Subsets

Dimensionality Reduction Through Sub-Space Mapping for Nearest Neighbour Algorithms

Implicit Feature Selection with the Value Difference Metric

Experience with Rule Induction and k-Nearest Neighbor Methods for Interface Agents that Learn

Exploiting Learning Technologies for World Wide Web Agents

Intelligent Agents = Learning Agents

Interface Agents that Learn: An Investigation of Learning Issues in a Mail Agent Interface

Learning Mechanisms for Information Filtering Agents

The Communication of Inductive Inferences

Experience with Learning Agents which Manage Internet-Based Information

Refinement in Agent Groups

Self-Questioning & Experimentation: An Index Vocabulary of Situated Interaction

Using Machine Learning to Enhance Software Tools for Internet Information Management

Agent-Based Knowledge Discovery

Collaborating to Refine Knowledge

Distributed Learning: An Agent-Based Approach to Data-Mining

Experience with Rule Induction & k-Nearest Neighbour Methods for Interface Agents that Learn

Informal Qualitative Models: A Systematic Approach to their Generation

Introspection Planning: Representing Metacognitive Experience

Agent-K: An Integration of AOP & KQML

Changing Viewpoint: Case Indexing by Introspective Questioning

Scientific Discovery in a Space of Structural Models: An Example from the History of Solution Chemistry

An AI Approach to the Interpretation of the NMR Spectra of Proteins

Case-Based Planning in an Exploratory Discovery System

Learning Plan Transformations From Self-Questions: A Memory-Based Approach

Machine Learning: Proceedings of the Ninth International Workshop - ML92

A Protein NMR Assistant

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Books and Reports

Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings

Contributions to Conferences

Contributions to Journals

Working Papers