Large-scale Complex IT Systems

The UK Large-Scale Complex IT Systems (LSCITS) Initiative is a research and graduate education programme focusing on the problems of developing large-scale, complex IT systems (also referred to as Ultra-large-scale systems or ULSS). The initiative is funded by the EPSRC, with more than ten million pounds of funding awarded between 2006 and 2013.

Background

The initial motivation for the establishment of a research programme in large-scale complex IT systems was the publication of a 2004 report by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the British Computer Society. This report examined the causes of failure of a number of large software projects and made several recommendations for research to address some of these problems.

A second report, authored by Seth Bullock & Dave Cliff and also published in 2004, was commissioned by the UK Government's Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Office of Science and Technology and carried the title Complexity and Emergent Behaviour in ICT Systems The main conclusions of this report were that the primary challenges needing to be addressed in the UK are institutional and cultural obstacles to appropriate interdisciplinary research and that there was an urgent need to address omissions in UK undergraduate computer science education.