Nicholas Robert Jennings is a British computer scientist who was appointed Vice-Chancellor and President of Loughborough University in 2021. He was previously the Vice-Provost for Research and Enterprise at Imperial College London, the UK's first Regius Professor of Computer Science, and the inaugural Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government on National Security. His research covers the areas of AI, autonomous systems, agent-based computing and cybersecurity. He has been involved in a number of company startups including Aerogility, Contact Engine, Crossword Cyber Security, Darktrace, and Reliance Cyber Science. He was the inaugural chair of the judges for the Manchester Prize for AI, and is a judge of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.
Education and early life Jennings was born in London. He grew up on the Isle of Portland in Dorset and attended Weymouth Grammar School. He studied for an undergraduate degree in computer science at the University of Exeter and his PhD was from the Department of Electronic Engineering at Queen Mary, University of London.
Research and career His research focus is on developing AI systems for large-scale, open and dynamic environments. In particular, on endowing individual autonomous agents with the ability to act and interact in flexible ways, and with building systems that contain both humans and software agents that work together in partnership. His systems have been used to save lives in the aftermath of disasters, to win Olympic medals for Team GB, and to monitor the impact of climate change on glaciers. In undertaking this research, he has attracted grant income of £33M, published more than 700 articles (with over 480 co-authors) and graduated over 50 PhD students (including two winners and one runner-up of the British Computer Society (BCS)/CPHC Distinguished Dissertation Award.) He has over 100,000 citations in Google Scholar and an h-index of 139. From 1988 he was at Queen Mary, University of London, where he was a PhD student, lecturer, reader and professor. In 1999, he moved to the Department of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton where he was the Deputy Head of Department, the Associate Dean (Research and Enterprise) for the Faculty of Engineering, Science and Maths, the Head of the Agents, Interaction and Complexity group and the Head of Department. He was appointed the UK's first Regius Professor of Computer Science in 2014. From 2010 to 2015, he was the UK Government's first Chief Scientific Advisor for National Security. In 2016, he moved to Imperial College to be the Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise), as well as a Professor of Artificial Intelligence. In 2021, he was appointed as the 9th Vice-Chancellor and President of Loughborough University.
Awards Jennings was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to computer science and national security science.
1999 (1999): IJCAI Computers and Thought Award 2000 (2000): IEE Achievement Medal for contributions to agent-based computing 2003 (2003): ACM Autonomous Agents Research Award for contributions to the field of agent-based computing 2004 (2004): Team leader of winning agent in the 20th Anniversary Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma Competitions 2007 (2007): Team leader of winner of Trading Agents Competition on Mechanism Design (CAT) 2007 (2007): ARGUS II project winner of The Engineer's Large Company / University Collaboration Award 2007: Int. Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems Special Recognition Award for “Intelligent agents: theory and practice” in The Knowledge Engineering Review 2008 (2008): Winner of "Best Industrial Demonstrator" award at International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Systems Conference 2009 (2009): Winner of The Engineer Award for Best Aerospace and Defence Project for ALADDIN 2010 (2010): Winner of Best Paper Award at International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (out of 685 submissions) 2010 (2010): Winner 1st International Competitions on the Lemonade Stand Game 2011 (2011): Winner 2nd International Competitions on the Lemonade Stand Game 2012 (2012): Winner US State Department's TAG challenge on social mobilisation and rapid information gathering 2016: IJCAI-JAIR Best Paper Prize (Honourable Mention) for “Theoretical and practical foundations of large-scale agent-based micro-storage in the smart grid” in Journal of AI Research 2016: The Engineer’s “Collaborate to Innovate” Award for the ORCHID project 2018: Int. Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems Influential Paper Award for “Developing multiagent systems: the Gaia methodology” in ACM Trans. on Software Engineering and Methodology 2020: BCS Lovelace Medal 2026: IJCAI-26 Award for Research Excellence
Fellowships 2003 (2003): Fellow European Association for Artificial Intelligence 2003 (2003): Fellow British Computer Society (FBCS) 2004 (2004): Fellow Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET) 2005 (2005): Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) 2006 (2006): Fellow Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour (AISB) 2008 (2008): Member of the Academia Europaea (MAE) 2008 (2008): Fellow Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (FIEEE) 2010 (2010): Fellow Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) 2012 (2012): Fellow German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) 2019: Fellow City and Guilds of London Institute 2020: Honorary Fellow of the Cybernetics Society 2022: Fellow of the Royal Society
Personal life Jennings is married to Jo and they have two children.
References