MGS 2022

Midlands Graduate School

in the

Foundations of Computing Science

10-14 April 2022

School of Computer Science

University of Nottingham

Invited Lecturer: Andrej Bauer (University of Ljubljana)

		Platinum Sponsor
		Platinum Sponsor

MGS 2022 in Nottingham

Background

The Midlands Graduate School (MGS) in the Foundations of Computing Science is an annual spring school that offers an intensive programme of lectures on the mathematical foundations of computing. While the school addresses especially PhD students in their first or second year, it is open to postdocs, MSc students, participants from the industry, and generally everyone interested in its topics. MGS has been running since 1999 and is hosted alternately by the Universities of Birmingham, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield.

MGS 2022 is the school's 22nd incarnation. Information about and links to previous events can be found on the main MGS website.

Overview

MGS 2022 will take place in Nottingham, starting on the morning of 10th April 2022, and ending on the afternoon of 14th April. During these five days, a total of eight courses will be run, each of which consists of 4-5 hours of lectures and a similar number of exercise classes. Participants are suggested to attend around four of these courses.

There are three categories of courses: Basic courses are suitable for newcomers, advanced courses are for everyone who is already familiar with the contents of the basic courses, and our Invited course by Andrej Bauer is for all participants.

Courses and Lecturers

This edition of the school offers eight courses. The course titles link to the course webpages, containing course descriptions and additional materials:

• Realizability, by Andrej Bauer (University of Ljubljana)

• Category Theory, by Thorsten Altenkirch (University of Nottingham)
• Proof Theory, by Gianluca Curzi and Marianna Girlando (University of Birmingham)
• Introduction to HoTT/UF (Homotopy Type Theory/Univalent Foundations) with Agda, by Martín Hötzel Escardó (University of Birmingham)

• Graph Transformation, by Reiko Heckel (University of Leicester)
• String diagrams for monoidal closed categories, by Dan Ghica (Huawei Research UK and the University of Birmingham)
• Coalgebra, by Paul Blain Levy (University of Birmingham)
• Topos Theory, by Eric Finster (University of Birmingham)

Schedule

In the table below, bold titles are lectures and titles ending in "-Ex" are exercise classes. Real is the invited course, Cat, Proof, HoTT are the basic courses, and Graph, String, CoAlg, Topos the advanced courses. Most timeslots have multiple entries, indicating that these sessions will be in parallel (no matter whether they appear vertically or horizontally next to each other).

All lectures, exercise classes, and coffee breaks are in the Exchange Building. Room numbers are in given on the schedule below, where LT2/3 are lecture theatres, C3/33 are classrooms. LT2 and C3/33 are on C floor, LT3 is on D floor, coffee and lunch are on A floor (A floor = ground floor).

UPDATE: Lectures that were scheduled to take place in LT1 are now in LT3!

Lunches (and some dinners, see table below) are in the School of Computer Science Atrium (you see it immediately when you enter the building).

Conference Dinner: 4550 Miles from Delhi, Tuesday, from 18:30.
Location: 41A Mount Street, NG1 6HE Nottingham.
One way to get there is Bus 28 or 30 or Two: Walk to the Jubilee Campus bus stop north of the campus, take the bus to Clarendon Street, then walk to the restaurant. A "Grouprider" ticket for Bus 28 or 30 is GBP 6 and valid for two people for the whole day. However, please be aware that there are multiple bus companies that sell different tickets. If you buy an all-day/return ticket when you board a bus, you will only be able to use it for returning with a bus from the same company. Moreover, buses are less frequent at night.
If you form groups of multiple people, taxis are a reasonable and similarly priced option as buses. Alternatively, walking takes approx. 35 minutes.

On Saturday (9 April) from 19:00, we will welcome you in the Rose and Crown (500 Derby Rd, Lenton, Nottingham NG7 2GW).

Registration

Registration is now closed. Please contact the organisers if you still want to register. It may or may not be possible.

Old information: The participation fee is £320, payable during sign-up. Apart from participation in lectures and exercise sessions, this includes lunch (on each of the five days), refreshments during coffee breaks, and the conference dinner. It does not include accommodation and dinners on the other days. Accommodation should be booked separately, please see the next section.

Accommodation

Accommodation should be booked individually by participants.

We have reserved a limited number of rooms on campus, less than 100 meters from the venue, in Newark Hall. These single-occupancy bedrooms with en-suite bathroom facilities include full English breakfast and are £54 per night. To book, please go to

nottinghamconferences.co.uk/B-and-B-Bookings/B-and-B-Bookings.aspx.

Important: Enter the code MGS2022 in the "Make an online booking" form.

Please note that these rooms are in high demand, not only by MGS participants but also by other visitors, and may be booked out very quickly. Therefore, in order to secure a room, please book early. If you are trying to book and find that no rooms are available, please write to me (Nicolai Kraus, organiser). There is no guarantee that an additional room can be reserved for you, but I will try.

Update (8 March): The above rooms are now booked out. If we can secure additional rooms, an update will appear here.

Update (9 March): We managed to reserve ten additional rooms for MGS, available through the site above. You need to enter the code MGS2022 in order to see them.

Update (11 March): We are aware that the additional rooms are also booked out. We'll try our best to secure more rooms.

UPDATE (14 March): More bedrooms are now available.

Venue

The school will be held on Jubilee Campus (Google Maps) at the University of Nottingham, hosted by the School of Computer Science (postcode NG8 1BB). Some sessions will take place in the School of Computer Science, others in the (adjacent) Exchange building. On the campus map, you can see that Computer Science (4), The Exchange (2), and the accommodation suggested above (Newark Hall, A) are all in close proximity.

Travel

Nottingham is centrally located in the UK, and is easily reachable by all forms of transport. The university's directions for getting to Jubilee Campus can be found here.

International travel: If you want to come by plane, closest to Nottingham is East Midlands Airport, but it is so small that you need to be lucky to find a flight arriving there. A very good destination airport is Birmingham, followed by Manchester and London Luton. All of these are within reasonable distance from Nottingham and well-connected by train, with none or very few changes.

Other London airports such as Stansted, Heathrow, and Gatwick are also options, but a bit more of a trek if you want to travel onwards by train; however, connections by bus can be very convenient (see national travel below).

If you want to avoid a flight, the Eurostar is fantastic.

National travel: National Rail is one of the sites that let you find train connections. If you want to try to safe costs, there are a couple of websites that let you split the journey into smaller parts (search for "UK train split ticket"), using that the triangular inequality does not hold for UK train fares. However, be aware that your tickets will be less flexible.

National Express offers cheap and often very convenient bus journeys and is an interesting option when the train connection is not direct. A similar website is Megabus.

Local travel: Jubilee Campus (Google Maps) has the address Wollaton Road, NG8 1BB. The campus is quite a bit away from Nottingham Train Station. Taxis are waiting at Station Street. Another possibility is to walk to Victoria Centre and take bus 28 or 30 to the stop Jubilee Campus.

Travel by car: Please contact Thorsten Altenkirch (organiser) by email if you would like to park on Jubilee Campus.

Visa

Organisation

For all enquiries, please contact me (Nicolai Kraus, organiser) by email, or contact Thorsten Altenkirch (organiser), also by email.