Informatics Europe

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Informatics Europe
Formation 2006
Type Learned Society
Headquarters Zurich, Switzerland
Membership 70 institutions (22 countries)
President Carlo Ghezzi
Website http://www.informatics-europe.org

Informatics Europe is an association of informatics departments in Europe founded in 2006.[1][2] Its members (institutions rather than individuals) are PhD-granting departments of informatics, computer science, computing etc. in universities as well as public and industrial research centers in information and software technology etc. in Europe. As of September 2012, Informatics Europe had 70 members from 22 different European countries [3] including e.g. Google, Intel, and Microsoft Research as industrial members.

Informatics Europe is similar to the Computing Research Association (CRA) in North America, but unlike the CRA, it does not include informatics departments that are granting bachelor or master degrees only. Informatics Europe is also related to scientific organizations like the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) and the ACM Europe Council of the Association for Computing Machinery.

Mission

The charter of Informatics Europe is to "foster the development of quality research and teaching" in informatics, which the association defines as "information and computing sciences".[4]

Activities

Informatics is a very international academic discipline of research and high-level education. An association like Informatics Europe represents the interests of its member academic departments and research laboratories in the discipline at the European scientific and policy level, to foster the science of the field, its practice and professions. Activities include:

  • regularly publishing reports on topics such as image of the Informatics discipline,[5] attracting students, curriculum improvement, researcher evaluation[6] and other topics of interest to the informatics community at large.
  • supporting initiatives at the European level aimed at quality assurance for university research and education programs in Informatics such as EQANIE, the European Quality Assurance Network for Informatics Education.
  • passing on experiences in managing (academic) research and education institutions, to improve the leadership in European Informatics and strengthen the general awareness of common issues and challenges across boundaries e.g. by organizing an annual event for new heads of Informatics departments and new directors of research and/or education of Informatics programs.
  • liaising with industries, companies, and organizations (like the European Union) in the ICT domain, to foster the development and importance of the scientific discipline for progress in information technology.

European Computer Science Summits

Through annual European Computer Science Summits (ECSS), the association brings relevant themes and trends in Informatics to the foreground, from a scientific, educational, strategic, professional or policy viewpoint. The Summits held since 2005 include:

  • Switzerland 1st ECSS, 2005, October 20–21, Zurich, Switzerland (ECSS 2005)
  • Switzerland 2nd ECSS, 2006, October 16–17, Zurich, Switzerland (ECSS 2006)
  • Germany 3rd ECSS, 2007, October 8–9, Berlin, Germany (ECSS 2007)
  • Switzerland 4th ECSS, 2008, October 9–10, Zurich, Switzerland (ECSS 2008)
  • France 5th ECSS, 2009, October 8–9, Paris, France (ECSS 2009)
  • Czech Republic 6th ECSS, 2010, October 12–13, Prague, Czech Republic (ECSS 2010)
  • Italy 7th ECSS, 2011, November 7–9, Milan, Italy (ECSS 2011)
  • Spain 8th ECSS, 2012, November 20–21, Barcelona, Spain (ECSS 2012)
  • Netherlands 9th ECSS, 2013, October 08–09, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (ECSS 2013)

History

The initiative to establish Informatics Europe was taken in 2005 during the first ECSS, organized by Bertrand Meyer (ETH Zurich) and Willy Zwaenepoel (EPFL Lausanne) as part of the `150 years ETH' activities; see [1] for a report in Communications of the ACM. Informatics Europe was officially created in 2006 at the second ECSS, chaired by Christine Choppy (Universite Paris XIII) and Jan van Leeuwen (Utrecht University).

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Bertrand Meyer and Willy Zwaenepoel, European Computer Science Takes Its Fate in Its Own hands, in Communications of the ACM, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 21-24, March 2006; draft copy available here.
  2. ↑ Bertrand Meyer, "Showcasing European Computer Science". 
  3. ↑ Member list
  4. ↑ "Mission of Informatics Europe"
  5. ↑ Student Enrollment and Image of the Informatics Discipline, Informatics Europe report
  6. ↑ Research evaluation for computer science, Informatics Europe report. Shorter journal version: Bertrand Meyer, Christine Choppy, Jan van Leeuwen and Jorgen Staunstrup, Research evaluation for computer science, in Communications of the ACM, vol. 52, no. 4, pp. 31-34, April 2009.

External links

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