BCS-FACS is the British Computer Society Formal Aspects of Computing Science Specialist Group. The group, founded in 1978, organizes meetings for its members and others on formal methods and related computer science topics. There is an associated journal, Formal Aspects of Computing, published by Springer, and a more informal FACS FACTS newsletter.
The group celebrated its 20th anniversary with a meeting at the Royal Society in London in 1998, with presentations by four eminent computer scientists, Mike Gordon, Tony Hoare, Robin Milner and Gordon Plotkin, all Fellows of the Royal Society.
From 2002–2008, the Chair of BCS-FACS was Jonathan Bowen. Since then, the Chair has been Jawed Siddiqi. In December 2002, BCS-FACS organized a conference on the Formal Aspects of Security (FASec'02)[1] at Royal Holloway, University of London[2]. In 2004, FACS organized a major event at London South Bank University to celebrate its own 25th anniversary and also 25 Years of CSP (CSP25),[3] attended by the originator of CSP, Sir Tony Hoare, and others in the field.[4].
The group liaises with other related groups such as the Centre for Software Reliability, Formal Methods Europe, the London Mathematical Society Computer Committee, the Safety-Critical Systems Club, and the Z User Group. It has held joint meetings with other BCS specialist groups such as the Advanced Programming Group and BCSWomen.
FACS sponsors and supports meetings, such as the Refinement Workshop[5]. It often holds a Christmas event each year, with a theme related to formal aspects of computing — for example, teaching formal methods[6] and formal methods in industry.[7] BCS-FACS supported the ABZ 2008 conference at the BCS London premises.[8]
In recent years, a series of evening seminars have been held, mainly at the BCS London office. Speakers have included leading computer scientists, mainly from the UK but some from abroad, including Samson Abramsky FRS, Jean-Raymond Abrial (France/Switzerland), Dines Bjørner (Denmark), Robin Bloomfield, Richard Bornat, Egon Börger (Italy), Jan Broenink (The Netherlands), Michael Butler, Muffy Caulder, Mike Gordon FRS, Anthony Hall, Mark Harman, Martin Henson, Jane Hillston, Mike Hinchey, Mike Holcombe, Michael Jackson, Cliff Jones, Marta Kwiatkowska, Tom Maibaum, Ursula Martin, Peter Mosses, Ben Moszkowski, Peter O'Hearn, Steve Reeves (New Zealand), John Reynolds (USA), Peter Ryan, Steve Schneider, John Tucker, Phil Wadler, among others. In 2010, a book of chapters based on some of these talks was published.[10] Talks are held annually with Formal Methods Europe and the London Mathematical Society (at the LMS headquarters in central London).