R  Bctcs 2006

The British Colloquium for Theoretical Computer Science (BCTCS) is an annual forum for researchers in theoretical computer science to meet, present research findings, and discuss developments in the field. It also provides an environment for PhD students to gain experience in presenting their work in a wider context, and benefit from contact with established researchers. BCTCS 2006 was held at Swansea University during 4–7 April 2006. The event attracted 122 participants, and featured an interesting and wide-ranging programme of 6 invited talks and 62 contributed talks; roughly half of the participants and speakers were PhD students. Abstracts for all of the talks are provided below ; further details, including on-line slides from the talks, are available from the BCTCS website at Development Agency (WDA) is gratefully acknowledged. A highlight of the meeting this year was a lengthy discussion, led by Samson Abramsky and chaired by Faron Moller, on the formation of a Learned Society for Computer Science in the UK. Such a Society was first proposed for Theoretical Computer Science 18 months earlier in a widely-circulated letter signed by Samson Abramsky, Faron Moller and David Pym which received overwhelming support; this led directly to wider interest in the UK in creating a Learned Society which would envelop the whole of Computer Science. This mammoth endeavour is being developed by a Working Party involving representatives from all relevant national organisations, and the meeting demonstrated near-unanimous support for its efforts (with only a small handful disappointed that the idea of a UK Society just for TCS would now be realised only as a subgroup of a wider organisation). Another novel feature of BCTCS 2006 was the form of its opening Invited Lecture, which came in the guise of Peter Mosses' Public Inaugural Lecture marking his recent appointment to a professorship at Swansea University. BCTCS 2007 will be hosted jointly by Oxford and Oxford Brookes Universities in Oxford University's St. Anne's College from 2–5 April 2007. Researchers and PhD students wishing to contribute talks concerning any aspect of theoretical computer science are warmly welcomed to do so. Further details are available from the BCTCS website at