Informatics Europe Bulletin  - December 2021

Dear Members,

Welcome to the final IE Bulletin in 2021: enjoy this edition where we include recent activity highlights and reveal some new activities in 2022. At this special time of year, we would like to express our gratitude to your continuous support - thanks for another great year! From all of us at Informatics Europe, wishing you a happy holiday season with your loved ones!

In this issue:

ECSS 2021 – Informatics for a Sustainable Future 

Highlights

The 17th edition of the European Computer Science Summit (ECSS 2021) completed successfully between 25 and 27 October, as the first hybrid event in its history. Speakers and participants across Europe and from as far as Bangladesh and the U.S. joined the summit in person in Madrid or virtually to present and discuss hot topics related to this year’s main theme “Informatics for a Sustainable Future”. The highlights together with photos are now available on our webpage. The presentation slides are also ready for download. Video recordings of the ECSS sessions will be available on our YouTube channel from later next week. Again a special thank you to our co-organisers Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Informáticos, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and CODDII – Spanish Council of Deans of Informatics, as well as our sponsor IBM, for supporting us in making ECSS 2021 another remarkable IE event!

Best Practices in Education & Minerva Informatics Equality Awards Winners 2021

The winners of IE’s annual awards were announced at a special award ceremony during ECSS 2021:

• Microsoft sponsors IE’s Best Practices in Education Award since 2011. This year the award goes to CINI Cybersecurity National Laboratory from Italy for their program “CyberChallenge.IT”. The program combines traditional training activities with a gamification-oriented approach, and proves to have a measurable difference in informatics education, especially in the domain of cybersecurity. As winner, CINI Cybersecurity National Laboratory received an award plaque and a prize of EUR 5,000 sponsored by Microsoft.
• Google sponsors IE’s Minerva Informatics Equality Award since 2016. This year the award goes to UK’s EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Robotics and Autonomous Systems for their outstanding support for both the encouragement and retention of female students in advanced graduate study of Robotics, Engineering, Computer Science and Informatics. As winner, EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Robotics and Autonomous Systems received an award plaque and a prize of EUR 5,000 sponsored by Google. In view of multiple excellent submissions this year, Hochschule Bremen has been recognised as this year’s runner-up for their innovative single sex bachelor’s programme.

Initiative on Open Citations in Informatics

A key topic discussed at the workshop organized together with the National Informatics Associations during ECSS was an initiative to build an Informatics-specific bibliometric resource based on combining the DBLP database with openly available citation data from the Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC).
The meeting agreed to promote an Open Letter to all publishers in the area of Informatics to release their citation data to benefit the common good. Many major publishers are already onboard, and with this letter we wish to achieve a comprehensive coverage of the citations in the area of Informatics. A website with more background and information about this initiative will be launched soon, where IE member departments at first and later the Informatics community at large will be invited to indicate their support through signatures. The website launch will be announced on our Latest News webpage.

ECSS 2022 in Hamburg – Save the Date!

The next ECSS will be held in Hamburg, Germany, from 24 to 26 October, 2022. Mark your calendar and join your international peers to debate the future of Informatics and contribute to a stronger European Informatics community.

Academic Leadership Development Course: Special Follow-up Session & NEW COHORT

The Autumn cohort of IE’s online academic leadership development course completed on 2 December, but the development journey continues. To check in on our course participants, a special two-hour follow-up online session is planned in January. Participants of the three previous cohorts will be welcome to join this session to connect and exchange new thoughts and experience, personally and professionally, after the course. Stay tuned for the email with full details.

Following the success of previous cohorts, we are also happy to announce that the course will be held for the fourth time, facilitated by Prof. Geraldine Fitzpatrick and Prof. Austen Rainer between March and May 2022. Registration now opens. Read more on what participants think about this unique course created, by computer scientists, for computer scientists and with computer scientists, and how you can benefit from it!

New Informatics Europe Webinar in January

Started this September, IE webinar series has become another popular IE activity ever since. The webinar recordings of previous webinars are now available under the “Informatics Europe Webinars” playlist on our YouTube channel. Our webinar series will continue in January:

• Accurate and Reliable What-If Analysis of Business Processes: Is It Achievable?

Re-view past webinars, keep informed of new webinars and register to participate via our webinar page here.

European Funded Project - Ethics4EU: plans in 2022

During the 4th Ethics4EU transnational meeting on 25 November, the first four intellectual outputs were reported to have completed in 2021. These included two research reports: “European Values for Ethics in Digital Technology” and “Existing Competencies in the Teaching of Ethics in Computer Science Faculties”, the project webpage, as well as eight re-usable/adaptable education bricks for the teaching of digital ethics. The community of practice, led by Informatics Europe, provided initial feedback to the bricks and will further contribute to their refining and dissemination until the end of the project, in August 2022.
In 2022, Informatics Europe members interested in the teaching of ethics to CS students will have the opportunity of experiencing how some European professors implement the Ethics4EU bricks in their classes. Your feedback can improve the bricks capacity to be replicated/adapted elsewhere. Further details and available dates will be provided early next year – stay tuned.

***
Informatics Europe positively contributes to the success of European funded projects. Looking for a pan-European networking partner to strengthen and support your research or education projects? Reach out to us (administration@informatics-europe.org).

Association News

Board Meetings

• Friday, 28 January, 09:00-17:00, Zurich
• Friday, 25 February and 25 March, 16:00-17:00, online

Don’t forget: As a member representative, you can submit agenda topics and participate as an observer in board meetings. Let us know in case you are interested in this offer!

Executive Committee Meetings

• Thursday, 27 January & Friday, 25 March, 09:00-16:00, Zurich

National Informatics Associations Meeting

• Thursday, 24 March, Zurich

New Informatics Europe Members

We are very pleased to welcome Université de Montpellier - CNRS, Laboratoire d'Informatique, de Robotique, de Micro-électronique de Montpellier (LIRMM): our new member from France.
LIRMM joins a growing IE membership of nearly 160 institutions from 34 European countries. Check out our current member list. 

Members News

Google Scholarships for Students in Computer Science and Gaming

Our industrial member Google offers various scholarships to support students in computing, gaming, and closely related fields by breaking the barriers that prevent them from entering these fields. Their scholarships are awarded based on the strength of the applicant’s academic background, leadership, and demonstrated passion for computer science or gaming. These two scholarships are now open for the 2022-2023 academic year:

• Generation Google Scholarship, with three categories: women in computer science, women in gaming and women in CS in Ireland, is open to current undergraduate or graduate students who will be studying at an accredited university for the 2022-2023 academic year. Application deadline: December 10, 2021 at 11:59 PM GMT
• Google Europe Scholarship for Students with Disabilities is open to current undergraduate or graduate students with disabilities who will be studying Computer Science or a related technical field at an accredited university in Europe or Israel for the 2022-2023 academic year. Application deadline: December 31, 2021 at 11:59PM GMT

Prof. Marcello Restelli of Politecnico di Milano’s Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria is among the authors of a study published on Nature Communications which describes a quantum compiler capable of programming, thanks to artificial intelligence, an algorithm on any quantum computer based on logic gates. The study is the result of the collaboration with Enrico Prati of the CNR - Istituto di Fotonica e Nanotecnologie and Matteo Paris of Università Statale di Milano and stems from research conducted by Lorenzo Moro, PhD student at Politecnico di Milano. Read further details on our LinkedIn post.

Politecnico di Milano, Italy – The ANDREAS project has been selected for the TETRAMAX TTX Award

The ANDREAS project has been awarded with the TETRAMAX TTX Award for its exceptional contribution to innovation in lower power consumption and better cost management applied to deep learning and artificial intelligence training workloads executed in hybrid infrastructures.
The award highlights the experiments with a significant impact on the industry, measured by performance indicators in three different categories: technical, business, and financial. Read more in our LinkedIn post.

***
This space is available to include relevant news from our member institutions. If you would like to share your news, please contact Kit Wan Chui.

New Jobs @ Informatics Europe Job Platform

There are 32 new job openings on the Informatics Europe Job Platform!
Advertise and extend your search to attract the best candidates for your open positions on the IE job platform free of charge!