Information & Computational Sciences

Welcome to the web site for the Information & Computational Sciences (ICS) department. Our creation at the James Hutton Institute was in response to the increasingly central role that computational approaches are playing in contemporary Plant and Environmental Sciences.

"Currently we have some 50 staff and research student members of the department based at our sites in Dundee and Aberdeen. The skill base of the department encompasses computational geography, bio- and geo-informaticians and computer scientists; as well as a range of modelling disciplines (including risk and uncertainty analysis, climate change and scenario modelling, crop modelling, whole systems modelling). The common aspect of our work is the utilisation of computational and integrative approaches to our science. In partnership with members of the other four Science Departments, we work across all seven of the Institute’s Research Themes, and across a broad range of scales from the molecular to the landscape. Our quantitative skills are in great demand and currently that demand frequently outstrips existing capacity. In consequence, we are always actively recruiting in several areas and we welcome approaches from either potential research students or staff members from other organisations who would like to spend a training period with us." Rupert Hough, ICS Department Leader

Featured Blog Items

Sustainability Is Our Only Chance For Prosperity
- Alessandro Gimona
- 01/10/2023
- ICS
- 0 Comments
By Alessandro Gimona, ICS. In her address to world leaders at COP 26, the late Queen remarked that true statesmanship lies in deploying one’s courage and vision to the benefit of future generations. This apparently simple proposition would require a radical transformation of our political system and societal structures. For decades political short-termism has instead […] ... Read More
Greenwishing our way to deep climate trouble?
- Iain Milne
- 02/12/2022
- ICS
- 0 Comments
By Alessandro Gimona, Senior Scientist, The James Hutton Institute (ICS) At COP27 the world’s governments did not make any real progress on emissions reductions, while reaffirming that 1.5 oC of warming should be a red line. COP28 started with the revelation that the projected global greenhouse gas (GHG) emission levels in 2030 are expected to be […] ... Read More
The missing pathway: Degrowth
- Rupert Hough
- 23/08/2021
- ICS
- 0 Comments
By Alessandro Gimona, Senior Scientist, ICS. All over the world ecosystems are changing in response to climate change as well as to other pressures caused by human activities. The average global temperature has increased by about 1.1 °C since the industrial revolution, with most of the change recorded since the mid-1970s. Already in October 2018, […] ... Read More
Learning about tech from podcasts
- Kit Macleod
- 29/08/2019
- ICS
- 0 Comments
As part of my personal development (and love of audio), I started listening to a lot of tech podcasts this year. Over the years I have occasionally listened to Michael Kennedy’s ‘Talk Python to me’, it is only more recently I have really started to explore this form of learning. The purpose of this blog […] ... Read More
From oil wealth to green growth: Aberdeen’s challenge and opportunity
- Jiaqi Ge
- 12/10/2018
- ICS
- 0 Comments
The economy of Aberdeen has been heavily reliant on the North Sea oil and gas industry since the 1970s. Thanks to the oil wealth, for decades Aberdeen had seen rapid economic and population growth and a swell of prosperity. At the end of 2014, however, all was changed. Crude oil price plummeted from more than […] ... Read More
Timely government intervention can prevent environmental collapse in debt-based financial systems
- Gary Polhill
- 20/09/2018
- ICS
- 0 Comments
The environment, as several news stories tell, faces a number of challenges from human activity. Besides climate change, there is an alarming rate of extinction of species, and concern about soil erosion, availability of fresh water, declines in populations of pollinators and songbirds, and loss of habitat for wildlife. It has been suggested that debt-driven […] ... Read More
Too much of a good thing?
- Jiaqi Ge
- 27/04/2018
- ICS
- 0 Comments
By Jiaqi Ge, Gary Polhill and Tony Craig Imagine you could choose to work at any of the workplaces in Aberdeen City and Shire, anywhere. How would that change your life? Would it make your life easier, now you don’t need to be stuck in the traffic for so long? Would you still come to […] ... Read More
Towards an Agile Approach to Sustainability Science
- Gary Polhill
- 24/01/2018
- ICS
- 0 Comments
The IT industry has been undergoing a revolution in the way software is developed. The traditional so-called ‘waterfall’ method, in which the customer is only really involved at the beginning and the end of the project, usually ends up several years later with the customer being dissatisfied with the result, costs out of control, and […] ... Read More
Mozilla Science Fellowship Application 2016
- Peter Cock
- 30/01/2017
- ICS
- 0 Comments
Last summer I applied to the Mozilla Fellows for Science 2016 call. Congratulations to the four 2016 fellows, selected from an impressive 483 submissions for only the second year of this innovative program. I was delighted to be short listed and interviewed, but also slightly relieved not to have made the final cut. This is due to the timing of […] ... Read More
Fridge Freezer
- Gary Polhill
- 20/06/2016
- ICS
- 0 Comments
Over Hogmanay our fridge packed in. It had lasted for ages; it was passed on to us from my in-laws, and was at least twenty years old when it died. So, we had to buy a new one. There’s a danger in writing about one’s purchases of creating the impression that one is carefully hiding […] ... Read More

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