Milner Symposium 2012

This grant was to help fund the three-day 2012 Milner Symposium, an event to celebrate Robin Milner's impact of Robin Milner's ideas, and how they might influence future research. The three main themes were: proof assistants for program correctness, functional programming languages, and concurrency. The speakers had 40 minutes (rather than the usual conference 25 minute allowance) to discuss their work, other relevant work, and future perspectives. In addition there were two panels, one entitled "the future of functional programming languages" (and funded by BCS), the other entitled "The future of concurrency: which solutions to which problems." Both panels involved world-leading figures in their areas. Both presentations and panels included generous time for audience participation. Contributors included both academics and industrialists.
In order to maximise attendance the meeting registration fee was kept low, partly with the aid of generous University support. Special provision was made for PhD students, including a yet lower registration fee. Students are the future, and we wanted to ensure they could benefit from Milner's ideas and their development; this included SICSA funding for Scottish students.