Research in Computer Science at the University of Exeter is housed within the Informatics Research Institute and builds on Exeter’s international reputation for informatics activities, especially with areas of artificial intelligence, hydroinformatics and pattern recognition and analysis, focusing on problems of knowledge representation, machine learning and image processing. The Institute brings together computer scientists and engineers working on a variety of modern-day, interdisciplinary topics. The School's internationally renowned Centre for Water Systems further strengthens research activity of this Institute.

In the area of Artificial Intelligence staff interests fall into two categories i) bioinformatics and biologically inspired computing and ii) artificial intelligence and information engineering. Interests include: problem-specific tailoring and hybridisation; generic parameterisation issues and multiobjective optimisation; reverse engineering of gene regulatory networks using artificial neural networks; machine learning; genetic algorithms; computational biology; gene sequencing; bio-complexity theory; artificial life; statistical analysis of gene expression; knowledge representation.