Welcome to ‘Fluid Business’, a research group in the School of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics at Brunel University. In the context of the modern organisational environment, we propose that a fluid business is one that has the ability to change repeatedly and unexpectedly. Our aim therefore is to enable a more dynamic fusion of people, organisation, process, information and technology with an emphasis on enabling more flexible and adaptable software systems. Our research objectives are to develop:

• Improved methods of modelling business knowledge (e.g., data, information, knowledge, action), including representations and mappings between models.
• More flexible and adaptable means of embedding business knowledge in technology.

The former objective is primarily related to the understanding and representation of ‘semantics’. The latter objective relates semantics to initiatives such as model-driven development, service-orientation, the Semantic Web and distributed platforms such as the Grid.

Our research ethos is a pragmatic one – in good part driven by the ethos of design science that research should have clear practical value. To that extent, our work moves from theory to practical outcome and we seek to apply outcomes to:

• Enable organisations to recover business knowledge from existing systems.
• Reduce the costs associated with system development, maintenance and integration.
• Improve the ability of a system to meet evolving business demands in real time.

Whilst new application development is an important aspect of our work, organisations have significant knowledge locked in existing systems – many of which are considered as mission critical. Indeed, costs associated with maintenance and integration of such systems costs now dominates the development arena. Consequently, we have a strong interest in the ‘transformation’ and integration of existing systems. 

Please feel free to browse our website, which will continue to evolve over time.