Interview with Professor Tom Crick MBE

Tom Crick was born in Oxford in 1981. His mother worked in adult education and his father was a production manager in technical manufacturing. Tom also has a brother.  He says of his parents: “My mum and dad allowed me to explore my own interests. I was perhaps a bit of a strange combination of someone who is quite geeky, deeply interested in science and technology but also quite sporty. I played tennis and football to a high standard when I was a teenager. I was deeply interested in physics and astronomy when I was quite young and that’s morphed into the physical sciences and certainly mathematics, and then a big focus on computing which became much more explicit as I finished my compulsory formative education and I went through to into university.”

Tom attended Wheatly Park School in Oxford, a state maintained secondary school where two teachers had a big impact on his education. He says: “Steve Drywood instilled a love of mathematics, problem solving and that deeper understanding of mathematics in me. It wasn’t just about passing the exam, it was about the structure and the nature of mathematics, and how that can be applied to solve interesting problems.” His second influence was Colin Clarke, Tom’s form tutor and physics teacher, of whom he adds: “I probably shocked him at some stage by asking questions about atomic and nuclear and particle physics as a fresh faced 12-13 year old. Just having that opportunity to talk about things, ask questions and read random books that were probably way above my level and above my ability to understand the physics but that had a massive formative impact on my interest and my passion for some of the subjects.”

Having achieved A levels in physics, chemistry and maths at A levels, Tom went to Bath University in 2000 where he started on a degree in electrical engineering. He says: “I rapidly realised after at least the first semester that all the stuff that I was really interested in was either going to happen at the back end of the course, or I should probably do a computer science degree.” As a result, halfway through his first year, Tom decided to stop and switch to a computer science, in the brand new computer science department at Bath which he started in September 2001. In his gap year between, Tom spent time working at RM, Research Machines as a junior analyst programmer working on software development in Visual Basic. He adds: “We were working on a range of enterprise software, doing data migrations and working in their educational technology areas. That really reinforced at that stage that I wanted to do something in the software IT world, or certainly programming and that gave me a very strong foundation when I went to university.”

 During his degree, Tom was sponsored by Arm and spent two summers working as research intern in Cambridge. Having completed his degree, Tom went on to study for his PhD, also at Bath University.

In 2009 having completed his PhD, Tom took his first job as a lecturer in computer science at Cardiff Metropolitan University which was known at that time as the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff (UWIC), part of the University of Wales.

Having lived in Wales since 2008/09, Tom has been learning Welsh, he says: “If you’re going to live and work in a country why wouldn’t you learn the language to better understand the culture; it’s very valuable.” Tom’s children are also learning Welsh in school. He adds: “It feels like a missed opportunity not to embrace that as the ability to learn and be able to speak in a second language.  I would say I’m British in that sense but I have a very strong affinity to Wales, both of my children have born in Wales, and it will be very interesting to see where they see their identity, particularly as they’re growing up in Wales, even though they have two parents who were born in England. I think that’s interesting and exciting to see where they will see their own history and heritage.”

In 2018, Tom moved to Swansea University. He explains: “I’d been at Cardiff Met for just over eight years. I was delighted I had been made a Professor in 2016. I was also Deputy Director of Innovation, so I had a central university role alongside my research role. After I’d been a Professor for two years at Cardiff Met, it felt like it was time for a change. I wanted to stay in Wales.  I wanted a new opportunity.” Through his collaboration with Professor Faron Moller and Professor John Tucker at Swansea, Tom knew the history and pedigree of the institution, and says: “it just felt like a very serendipitous moment being able to work both in computer science but also in a school of education that had just been reformed.”

In 2012, Michael Gove, the then Education Minister questioned whether the ICT curriculum in England was fit for purpose. At the same time, Eric Schmidt of Google made a high profile speech saying Britain was doing its young people a disservice by not teaching computer science as part of a core part of the curriculum. These two elements precipitated changes in England, and Tom recognised the opportunity to stimulate change in Wales too. Through BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, Tom, motivated by his desire to help people understand the importance and impact of computing and digital skills more widely, took part in the Royal Society’s reviews of computing education in 2012 and 2017.

He says: “It was very early on in my career but it was really nice to be acknowledged in that 2012 report by the Royal Society. It was the stepping stone for driving those reforms in Wales, and it was easy to point to curriculum reform and qualifications reform, and a wider focus on why computer science education was of benefit, not just economically, but also socially and culturally.”

As a result of his involvement with the review, Tom co-chaired the independent review of the ICT curriculum in Wales in 2013 with Janet Haywood and Stuart Arthur. He says: “It pulled together me as an academic, Janet as a very prominent primary school Head Teacher, and Stuart reflecting the IT industry. Everything  exploded from there because that set the aspiration for what we wanted to achieve in Wales for reforming the ICT curriculum and what a new computing curriculum could look like.”

This review lead to a major independent review of the curriculum and assessment in Wales, led by Professor Graham Donaldson. The reviews set out major changes including having digital competence recognised as a key cross curricular skill alongside literature and numeracy. In 2015 Tom was invited to chair the development of the digital competence framework; a bilingual cross curricular digital competence framework for the ages of three to 16.

Tom says: “This means we have now computer science in the curriculum and also cross cutting digital competence which acknowledges that it has as much prominence as literature and numeracy, and it is thought of in a whole cross school approach, and that was made available to schools in September 2016. We then got into the curriculum for Wales implementation and I chaired the development of this new science and technology area in the new curriculum for Wales from 2017 to 2020. It brought together physics, chemistry, biology, computer science, design, and technology, into this cohesive area of learning and experience; one of the largest in the new curriculum of Wales which was published in January 2020. We’ll start to phase in and it will be implemented from September 2022. I think we are in a position where we have a new curriculum that’s been designed in Wales, it’s been co-constructed with teachers, it’s fit for purpose for a new modern curriculum in Wales and we have the prominence and profile for computer science, and we want to be able to develop digitally confident and capable future citizens, so it feels like we’re in a very exciting time.”

On the history of computing, Tom, believes that it’s really important to recognise and acknowledge the very, very important contribution from the UK both from organisations and government, but also from people.  “There are some very important people in kind of – in the early days of computing who are – who are British and that’s an important part to bring into the curriculum.”

In 2011 Tom became a Science Media Fellow with BBC Wales, a scheme run by the British Science Association that aims to change perspectives about the communication of science and the understanding of science to society.

Tom says of the experience: “I was very, very keen to do the media fellowship.  I hadn’t seen many computer scientists do it. It’s beneficial for the research through academics because it makes you better understand how the media works and how stories and how news is created and conducted, and then also from the other side you can embed some deep expertise within these organisations and you can exploit your professional networks to provide a bit of insight when there are science and technology related stories.”

Between 2013 and 2015, Tom was the Nesta Data Science Fellow; a role he took to combine his research experience with policy work. He says: “I realised as part of this wider work with digital skills and curriculum reform I really liked doing the research policy interface and that there was valuable contributions of being able to articulate interests in technical and technological challenges and what it looks like from a politics and policy making perspective.”

His involvement saw him working with Nesta’s policy and research team to consider how to more meaningfully embed a data science capability within government and policy making. Tom adds: “I think we’ve seen the benefits of this; one in the development of things like the digital data and technology (DDAT) function within government with the civil service, but also the acknowledgement that actually having the right data, evidence, and digital capability through all aspects of  government policy making is hugely beneficial.  It reaffirmed to me that there’s valuable work to be done as an academic and also there’s very interesting and intellectually interesting work to be done as an academic sitting at that research policy interface. … It refined and developed a skill set that I thought was useful and valuable, and has been a key part to my career and success over recent years. … It also has allowed me to do a diverse range of roles alongside my academic role as well.”

In 2014, Tom was elected a Fellow of the Software Sustainability Institute, a BCS funded project.  Tom says: “It’s a fantastic organisation that does a lot of work in this space from open science and open research to reaffirming how important software is not only to the academic and science and research community, but more broadly to society and the economy.  The world is glued together by software and that software is eating the world.”

In 2017, as well as receiving his MBE for services to computer science and the promotion of computer science education, Tom also became Vice President of the academy, part of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT. Tom joined the professional body as a student and has volunteered and sat on many of the boards and groups, been a council member and trustee. He says: “I stood for election as Vice President of the academy in 2017 and served a three year term which was fantastic.” He adds: “They are the professional body for IT and computing and I think it’s just hugely beneficial to be involved and to have the BCS as a strong, vibrant diverse community that reflects computing, education and profession in the UK.”

As a result of his work and his interest in the broader digital message for Wales, Tom has become involved with a number of boards in advisory, non-executive roles, including the Swansea Bay University Health Board which serves 400,000 people across Swansea and Neath Port Talbot and Dwr Cymru, Welsh Water; the sixth largest water and waste company in England and Wales. He is also Commissioner of the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales which advises Welsh government on five to 30 year economic and environmental infrastructure investments in Wales. Tom adds: “It all  fits together. There’s this thing around digital – a cross cutting message.”

In January 2021, Tom became Editor in Chief of the Computer Journal published by Oxford University Press, following in the footsteps of Steve Furber. Tom says: “I wear lots of hats I suppose but they all coincide and support each other.   The Computer Journal is one of the oldest journals in computer science and it covers a very broad area of interest. There are not too many journals like that in computer science because they’ve become much more disciplinary or sub-disciplinary focused. It has a lot of history and heritage, it’s been going since 1953.  A lot of famous papers have been published in the journal over the years.”

Tom has been working with the editorial team and has ambitions over the next few years to further increase its prominence and profile, he adds: “I want it to be viewed as a venue where you can discuss cutting edge research but also more contemporary  policy issues within computer science or the impact on society.”

Tom is a patron of the Repair Café Wales, part of a grass roots global movement with branches across the UK. The Repair Café’s mission is to create a more sustainable society by nurturing a culture of fixing and repairing things, rather than throwing things away if they are broken.

Tom explains: “I’m not directly involved in the running of Repair Café Wales, it’s been a growing movement over the past few years, but I’m very, very pleased to be a patron of it because it’s something that resonates with some of my perspectives of the world. I think that wider technology and sustainable development is really, really important.  I also like the fact that we’re developing the skills, knowledge and understanding about how to fix, manipulate, make and reuse the technology that is all around us. I think that understanding and the hands-on approach to fixing stuff is hugely beneficial and is good for young people as it is for everyone else in society.”

One of the challenges for STEM education in the next ten years is the need to build greater diversity. Tom explains: “There’s been such a huge policy focus on STEM education for the past 15 years that everyone knows it’s important, everyone knows it has economic, societal and culture value, and everyone knows that we need scientists and engineers for a variety of reasons. There’s also huge challenges around having a diverse STEM profession, not just gender diversity but also ethnic and cultural diversity. There are some reports that came out recently led by the Royal Society and other professional bodies saying the number of Black and ethnic minority Professors in science and engineering is terrible. Statistically there are zero in many domains because the numbers are so low. So, we know there is still a big problem and yet we are still struggling to address some of those challenges. I think some of the curriculum and qualifications reform work can make a difference. We need to change cultures and behaviours in schools.  We need to continue to change the way that the subject is taught, and that there’s prominence and profile in the visibility of role models and mentors, all the way from primary school going into secondary school. Again, this is going to take a long time to affect change.  I think there’s still lots of work to be done in universities and in academia more generally around systematic inequalities around how people are promoted or how people are recognised and acknowledged for their work going forwards, but I think that can be particularly challenging within the STEM disciplines.  We need a diverse science, engineering, mathematics and computer science community because it needs to reflect the society that we live in.”

Tom has been involved in several research projects looking at the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on education in Wales. He explains: “It’s had such a profound transformational impact and I’ll caveat with both hugely negative and challenging things but I think there was some really positive stuff to come out of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

The research includes a project done in collaboration with Tom’s colleagues at Swansea, the University of Bristol, as well as internationally, that focuses on the impact on practitioners. Tom says: “We’re looking at what does it mean for universities, for schools and actually both from the impact of emergency remote teaching and online learning teaching assessment, but also mental health and wellbeing for practitioners.”

In addition, Tom has a Welsh Government funded project with four institutions focusing on the learner voice.  He adds: “We’re looking at what does it mean for Year 10, 11, 12 students for the future assessment, qualifications and their perspectives about the impact of learning and teaching over that period.”

A further project is looking at learning design. Tom adds: “It feels like the world has fundamentally changed. This isn’t going to go away now so what does it look like in the sense of how do we meaningful construct and design learning at all different levels and settings. … I think the Rubicon has been crossed at some level; the Open University have been very good at doing distance blended learning for many, many years but it feels like all institutions, all universities are going to be doing some form of blended delivery. There will always been some online stuff now. I think it’s interesting what that looks like in schools because perhaps it’s much more challenging because of the diversity of setting and the diversity of composition and capabilities to do this, but this is going to be a feature of education.”

Tom continues: “We don’t want it just being done to students. Students need to be meaningfully involved in the implementation of some of these tools and technologies. It has to be much more learner and pupil centred, and we have to have much more explicit conversations around personal data and consent. In that sense, Covid has made things happen so quickly, the roll out of technology, the ability to do online learning and teaching, and we’ve seen some schools being able to cope with that much better than others. There are benefits to doing stuff at pace, at scale, and I hope we can maintain some of those abilities, but also I think we do need to have some much more considered and critical approaches to what this means and the role of technology in education going forwards.”

Asked what lessons he’s learned from his career, Tom says: “I had a fairly traditional scientific background. I did physics, chemistry, and maths, a science degree, but, as much as I view myself as an engineer, I also view myself as a social scientist, somebody who does public policy. Having the inter-disciplinarity or the trans-disciplinarity and the ability to discuss and communicate complex ideas to a range of different audiences is the thing that I have found really beneficial. You can be viewed as STEM versus arts and humanities; two cultures, and never the twain shall meet, but clearly that false dichotomy and divide is so unhelpful.

“All of these things inter-relate and that’s how we create better policy.  That’s how we create better interventions.  That’s how we create a more fair,  sustainable, and just society. … It’s not just about developing technology in a vacuum.  It affects people, it affects society and that’s a key combination of competencies, or dispositions, or behaviours and cultures, that we really need to reflect and to bring together going forwards.”

Tom says that while he did not have a plan for his career, he knew he wanted to carve a niche for himself; a different path from what he had done at university in Bath and something he has achieved by building diverse networks and connections and taking opportunities when they arose.  He says: “Saying yes to lots of stuff has been a good thing. I need to be much more considered now about saying no to stuff because it can be very seductive to yes to everything but you have to be pragmatic about what you can achieve and the amount of time you have to do stuff. You have to really consider where’s my time best spent or where can I have the most impact. I said yes to lots of stuff early on in my career and I think that’s been hugely beneficial, but now the harder thing is to say no to things, even though you may want to do them, or you are perfectly capable of doing them, but you might not necessarily have the time to do all the things that you want to do.”

Asked if there are things he would do differently, Tom answers: “I don’t know if there’s anything that I would do differently; maybe relationships and people who I’d like to have worked more with. You never know the consequences of small decisions but ultimately I’m very happy with how things have turned out and no regrets. You can’t regret things you’ve done because they’ve been a formative part of your  life and if they have been painful or they’ve not come out how you wanted them to do they’re still a formative part of what makes you what you are now and how that  perhaps shapes and influences what you do in the future.  So, you can enjoy the good bits because of the bad bits too, you need the bad bits to provide context or motivation, or to understand, to reflect and maybe not to do the same things in the future.”

Tom points to the birth of his sons, and his MBE in 2017 as among his proudest moments, saying: “the birth of my two boys in life is a huge; I’m extremely proud of that.  I was utterly delighted to be appointed MBE in 2017; it’s very professionally useful, it has a lot of value and kudos and credibility and a lot of different contexts, but I would probably say my proudest achievement was when I was first appointed Professor in 2016. It felt like that was a culmination of the work that I’d done particularly because it reflected my research as well as my wider policy work. … It’s nice to be recognised as the person who’s led a lot of the computer science, digital skills and STEM work in Wales, especially when you start looking at that in a UK context as well as an international context.”

Interviewed by Elisabetta Mori

Transcribed by T P Transcription Services

Abstracted by Lynda Feeley