National Associations Workshop
Informatics Europe organised an online workshop of National Informatics Associations on 28 October, as part of the online ECSS 2020 programme. It was a half-day morning session dedicated to the theme "Interdisciplinarity and Informatics" and conducted via Zoom.
The increasing emphasis on interdisciplinarity in science raises nontrivial questions for Informatics in at least the four dimensions of research, teaching, large-scale trends and societal aspects. Some concrete examples are: 'How does Informatics as a field benefit from interdisciplinary collaboration?', 'In which interdisciplinary areas does Informatics have the biggest impact?', 'Are interdisciplinarity and core Informatics friends or competitors?', 'How should interdisciplinary research and teaching, including doctoral education, be organised?'. The aim of the workshop was to share experiences and best practices in addressing such issues, and to discuss common concerns and opportunities in the area.
Participants can browse through the "Discussion Topics" that were addressed during the Workshop: www.informatics-europe.org/images/national-associations/ECSS_2020_NIA_Discussion_Topics.pdf.
The workshop was chaired by Pekka Orponen, Aalto University, and Kim Mens, Université catholique de Louvain.
Workshop Schedule
09:00 – 09:10 Welcome and Introduction
09:10 – 09:50 Session 1 - Research (Chair: Gerald Steinhardt)
09:50 – 10:30 Session 2 - Education (Chair: Bart Demoen)
10:30 – 10:40 Coffee break
10:40 – 11:20 Session 3 - Large-scale Trends (Chair: Paolo Atzeni)
11:20 – 12:00 Session 4 - Societal Aspects (Chair: Martin Glinz)
12:00 – 12:30 Conclusions and the Way Ahead