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Estonian Computer Science: How to Make it Relevant?

Estonian Computer Science: How to Make it Relevant?. Marlon Dumas Institute of Computer Science University of Tartu. Dream. IMPACTING Inspiration Research Findings. CS/IT Research. IT Practice. UNDERSTANDING Inspiration Empirical Evidence.

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Estonian Computer Science: How to Make it Relevant?

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  1. Estonian Computer Science: How to Make it Relevant? Marlon Dumas Institute of Computer ScienceUniversity of Tartu

  2. Dream IMPACTING Inspiration Research Findings CS/IT Research IT Practice UNDERSTANDING Inspiration Empirical Evidence Based on Moody, D.L. (2000): Building Links Between IS Research and Professional Practice

  3. ‘Academic’ issues Practical Problems Disconnect Computer Science Research IT Industry Theories, models, research methods/ artifacts Practical solutions Reality Moody, D.L. (2000)

  4. Hurdles for University-Industry Interaction • Lack of interest / incentives • Lack of timing • Lack of awareness • Lack of credibility • Lack of capacity • Lack of alignment

  5. Issue 1: Fragmentation • Estonia is too small to have institutes that compete among them • IT is global, our “competitors” are outside Estonia! • Duplication of efforts is not viable!

  6. Issue 2: Lack of Research Talent Pipeline • Full employment in IT  few PhD students  fewer PhD graduates  no postdocs • High teaching loads for junior academics • Low salaries in EU terms • Lack of “tenure” system or similar incentives for ECRs

  7. Issue 3: Misalignment with Industry • Misalignment between “traditional” research themes and industry’s evolution • Little research capacity in: • Software Engineering • Internet Technology • Information Systems • Limited use-inspired research

  8. Lack of International Visibility • Estonian CS research ranks very low in terms of bibliometric indicators • Google scholar citations: One computer scientist in Finland has more citations than top 30 in Estonia. source: http://research.cyber.ee/~lipmaa/cites/ • ISI citations: One computer scientist in Finland has more citations than top 12 in Estonia. source: ISI Web of Knowledge

  9. Estonian CS Research: SWOT Analysis

  10. EXCS: Estonian Centre of Excellence in Computer Science (EXCS) • National centre of excellence 2008-2015 funded mainly by EU Structural Funds (EUR 4.5 mil.) • Led by TTU’s Institute of Cybernetics, with Cybernetica AS and University of Tartu • 43 senior staff, around 50 research students

  11. EXCS Objectives • To consolidate and advance the Estonian CS research in six focus areas driven by cross-institutional research groups • To increase the awareness and impact of CS research results in academia, industry and society.

  12. Areas of competencies Technology Theory InformationSecurity Cryptography Information Systems Embedded real-time systems Software Engineering Programming language semantics Intelligent systems Knowledge Engineering Software verification Applications Machine learning • Distributed Systems • Bioinformatics • Scientific computing Natural language processing

  13. EXCS Planned Actions • Recruitment of ~ 8 postdocs and 12 junior researchers • Organization of high-level scientific events • Funding of international cooperation projects. • Funding of technology transfer & contact days for industry • Contribution to policy-making • Popularization: media coverage, popular books.

  14. First Industry-Academia Event • Symposium on Innovative Software Technology, Tartu 27-28 October 2008 • Free registration (limited numbers) • http://sep.cs.ut.ee/index.php?n=Main.IST2008

  15. Open Issues • Lack of incentives for university-industry links • No scheme for industry linkage projects • No tax incentive for companies • No incentive for researchers • Lack of research quality incentives • Government funding available almost to everybody anyway • University research funding not sufficiently tied to research quality or impact

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