ECSS 2022 - Highlights
The much-awaited 18th edition of the European Computer Science Summit (ECSS 2022) returned as a full in-person event on 24-26 October in Hamburg, Germany. Hosted by the University of Hamburg and co-organised by GI - German Informatics Society and SICP - Software Innovation Campus Paderborn, Informatics Europe (IE) welcomed informatics research and education leaders from public and private institutions, as well as policymakers, at ECSS 2022 with this year’s main theme “Workforce for the digital transformation”.
A special session for new IE members in 2022 was held before the official opening of ECSS 2022. Participants were welcomed by Enrico Nardelli, IE President, and Nuria Anguera, IE Executive Director, followed by an overview of IE activities and member benefits, as well as an icebreaking session where new members got to know each other and exchange ideas of contributions and collaborations with IE.
Following the special session, ECSS 2022 was officially opened by Norbert Ritter, Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Natural Sciences at the University of Hamburg (DE), Enrico Nardelli, IE President, and a special video welcome addressed by Bettina Stark-Watzinger, German Federal Minister for Education and Research.
After the ceremony, ECSS 2022 kickstarted with the following sessions:
Leaders Workshop
Organised by Harald Gall (University of Zurich, CH) and with a focus on “Workplace Culture and Digital Dexterity”, the workshop covered several interactive sessions.
In the morning, Laura Giurge (London School of Economics and Political Science, GB) shared some of her latest research on the future of work, with an interactive and engaging talk with the audience. Topics were around the downsides of flexible work hours, the well-being implications of how we engage with technology at work, and last but not least, how leaders who acknowledge well-being along with productivity can lead more financially resilient organizations. These talks formed the basis for the afternoon sessions to be followed in a hands-on style.
In the first afternoon session, Laura Giurge together with Jennifer Sparr (University of Zurich, CH) invited the audience to reflect on how they allocate one of our most precious resources – time – and to analyze one of the most salient tensions in leadership, namely the tension between needing to be flexible with one’s schedule while also needing to plan one’s time to accomplish core leadership tasks. Through a mini time-audit exercise and a polarity map exercise, participants learned that leaders need and can be both flexible and strict with their time.
Concluding the workshop, Schahram Dustdar (TU Vienna, AT) addressed digital leadership from an ecosystem perspective in the second afternoon session. He described leadership as an ecosystem, in which everything relates in some form to everything with varying levels of sensitivity. He discussed challenges of the research landscape and how disruption is needed to adapt to the rising expectations of leadership in the digital age.
Professional Development Workshop for Early Career Researchers
For the second year in a row, this Workshop was held during ECSS with the intention to help early career researchers navigate the options of the post-study employment world.
This year, five keynote speakers from academia and industry shared with us some typical career paths for informatics researchers in various sectors:
- Patricia Lago (VU Amsterdam, NL) gave a comprehensive overview talk on the stages of professional development within the traditional academic career path and shared her insights on where the focus of a person’s attention should be as they progress through the academic system.
- Sebastian Gerling (University of Hamburg, DE) discussed the challenges of working in infrastructure-related academic positions, where a wide range of career opportunities are available. They help make systems-related research more aware of the needs of the marketplace.
- Jean-Marc Jézéquel (IRISA-Rennes, FR) gave a more personal overview of the career choices he had made as a researcher in the telecom sector. With a career in commercial, military, and academic organizations, he discussed the feelings that a young researcher had in larger organizations, as well as the possible career paths within research institutes, and the relative advantages/disadvantages over work at a university.
- Ante Vilenica (Justice Department Hamburg, DE) provided the audience with an insight into career opportunities in the public sector, where societal problems (and societal constraints) provide a wealth of opportunities for personal and professional development.
- Gabriel Orsini (Otto, DE) outlined the challenges and opportunities of applied research within the commercial sector. He explained the pros and cons of working in hybrid teams, where interesting research challenges needed to be weighed against concrete commercial goals.
Facilitated by Dick Bultermann (CWI/VU Amsterdam, NL), the workshop continued with a presentation of several participants answering the question “what are today’s researchers expecting to find when they enter the employment world?”. Room for personal development, access to people and a diverse working environment, the opportunity to visit peers elsewhere, and the ability to combine personal and professional growth are all important topics highlighted by participants. The workshop concluded with the keynote speakers’ reactions to these expectations.
Later that evening, several workshop participants were able to present posters on their research work at the ECSS opening reception.
Main Theme – “Workforce for the Digital Transformation”
Facilitated by Tilo Böhmann (University of Hamburg, DE), the second day of ECSS 2022 started with the Main Theme session exploring the relevance of computer science skills for understanding and shaping society.
Judith Simon (University of Hamburg, DE) started the session by arguing that technology is never neutral from a values-based perspective. Geraldine Fitzpatrick (TU Wien, AT) presented work of Anna Cox (University College London, GB) on managing work-life boundaries in increasingly hybrid work environments. Walter Quattrociocchi (Sapienza University of Rome, IT) shared findings on the spreading of (dis)information in social networks. Michael Müller-Wünsch (OTTO, DE) highlighted the massive need for digital skills in our society. Finally, Hannes Federrath (University of Hamburg and former President of the German Informatics Society, DE) explained how the German Association for Computer Science systematically engages with national policy, society, and professionals in ongoing social debates on the digital future.
The session continued with a lively discussion highlighting the need for computer scientists to engage in societal discourse and policy shaping, bringing tech competence to bear on understanding current developments and crafting solutions for the future. The discussion called for a more systematic inclusion of ethical and policy-related aspects into computer science education, the sharing of best practices for teaching this area, and motivating computer scientists to engage in public discourse. All this was seen as an essential skill set for individuals in the context of digital transformation.
Education Workshop
The Workshop started with a presentation of activities of the Informatics for All coalition, including a presentation of the Informatics Reference Framework for School published earlier this year. The reference framework is a proposal for a coherent vision and shared terminology related to providing informatics to all pupils in Europe, as requested by the European Commission.
A key part of the workshop was a presentation by Sonia Piedrafita Tremosa of the Eurydice report Informatics education at school in Europe. The report marks a milestone for the Informatics for All coalition's endeavours to promote informatics as a fundamental discipline for the 21st century: (1) it is the first time 'informatics' is used in the title of an official document from the European Commission, and (2) the reference framework is systematically used to analyse learning outcomes in 39 education systems in the 27 EU member states and 10 other Erasmus+ countries.
The workshop finished with an activity identifying challenges related to implementing the two-tier strategy of Informatics for All, and people volunteering to work on some of these challenges through IE’s Education Research Working Group.
Societal Impact of Digital Transformation Workshop
The Workshop was held with the goal to discuss the societal impact of digital transformation by focusing in particular on ethical aspects in software development, as well as on how to include ethical aspects in educational programs.
In the first part of the workshop, Alexander Pretschner (TU Munich, DE), spoke about methods to include ethical aspects in methodical approaches for the development and operation (DevOps) of software solutions. In particular, he introduced the approach “Ethics in Agile Software Development” as a workable alternative to existing ethical guidelines or frameworks.
In the second part of the workshop, Dympna O'Sullivan (TU Dublin, IE), presented the results of the Ethics4EU project. Funded by Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership, this project developed new curricula, best practices, and learning resources for teaching digital ethics to computer science students.
Finally, a panel with the two speakers, and additionally Andrea Curley (TU Dublin, IE) and Suzanna Alpsancar (Paderborn University, DE), discussed the presentations and derived questions in an extensive exchange with the audience. They discussed topics such as how to integrate computer ethics modules into computing curricula in the higher education context, whether teaching ethics contributes to people acting in an ethical manner, and whether teaching ethics to computer science students is sufficient.
Several activities for the IE working group on Ethics were discussed at the workshop, such as adding new teaching building blocks and case studies to the Ethics4EU outcomes, organizing an IE webinar series, a summer school, or even a joint Marie-Curie network project. People interested in contributing and discussing these topics were invited to join this working group chaired by Dympna O’Sullivan.
Awards Session
At each ECSS we celebrate institutions and teams who have outstanding contributions to informatics in the aspects of education and gender balance.
This year we were pleased to announce at our special award ceremony that Technocamps, from Wales (UK), won the IE 2022 Best Practices in Education Award sponsored by Microsoft, for its contribution to improve the quality of Informatics teaching and the attractiveness of the discipline.
The IE 2022 Minerva Informatics Equality Award sponsored by Google was devoted to gender equality initiatives and policies to develop the careers of female faculty, including retention and promotion, and had two winners, the Faculty of Informatics, TU Wien (Austria), and the Gender-equality and Anti-harassment Committees at IRISA and Inria Center of University of Rennes (France). A special runner-up recognition was also given to Department of Computer Science, Brunel University London (UK) for their submission to this year’s Minerva Informatics Equality Award with their WE-CARE (Women Empowerment – Careers and Recognition) programme.
Joining us at the ceremony this year was Jens Redmer, representative of Google. Being IE’s industry member and sustaining sponsor, Google has been the loyal sponsor of Minerva Award since its establishment in 2016. To celebrate the exceptional award entries, Google has generously doubled this year’s prize to a total of EUR 10,000, where each winner received a prize of EUR 5,000 to carry on their excellent initiatives.
Dialogue with Members - Informatics Europe Activities and Outcomes
Every year a special session is held during ECSS, where we present updates of IE’s main activities and outcomes, and offer feedback opportunities for IE members to propose and contribute in IE strategy. This year the special session was held on Tuesday, 25 October, afternoon.
We began the session by welcoming the 14 new members who joined the organization in the past 12 months, as well as Karin Triviere, who joined our IE Office in June as Executive Assistant. Presentations of our main working groups followed: Research in Education, Ethics, Diversity & Inclusion, Policy Recommendations, Sustainability, Open Science. Chairs of each working group presented the groups’ progress and outcomes since their launch in Spring. We reminded the audience that IE Working Groups are exclusively open to IE members, who are encouraged to actively contribute in proposing and jointly developing activities to strengthen the European Informatic community.
We also gave reviews and updates of our IE services in particular the online and residential academic leadership courses, presented by Geraldine Fitzpatrick, one of the course facilitators, and the department evaluation service, which we have relaunched in 2022 with the Evaluation of our member institute: Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University (FI MU) in Czech Republic. More good news about our European projects were reported: Grant Holder Management of the EUGAIN COST Action enters the 3rd year, the Erasmus+ Ethics4EU reached its end in the summer and its successor, Inclusion4EU, has been granted and will start shortly. Additionally, a new service was announced: the CV repository service will be launched in early 2023, aiming at bringing together the students from our member institutions with top employers. Our members were reminded on the importance to support IE by disseminating our activities in their networks, making use of our services, and bringing more peer institutions and colleagues on board.
To conclude the day, the IE Annual General Assembly was held, where members voted for three new Board Directors: Marco Aiello (University of Stuttgart, DE), Lenuta Alboaie („Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, RO), and Dimka Karastoyanova (University of Groningen, NL), effective for a three-year term from January 2023 to December 2025. Through members’ voting, the financial report 2021, the provisional budget 2023, and changes to IE’s bylaws were also approved.
WIRE-EUGAIN Workshop
WIRE-EUGAIN Workshop was held as one of the parallel workshops on the final day of ECSS 2022. It attracted around 80 participants and 20 speakers from around the world. This year’s workshop theme was “Workforce for the Digital Transformation - Attracting and Retaining Female Students from Bachelor and Master to PhD” and it consisted of six sessions.
In the first session, chaired by Özge Misirli (Eskisehir Osmangazi University, TR), the current achievements and plans of the individual Working Groups of the EUGAIN COST Action CA19122 on “European Network For Gender Balance in Informatics” were presented and discussed. As part of this session, a group of young researchers introduced their proposal for one of the deliverables of the Action. Karolina Bolesta (Warsaw School of Economics, PL), Serena Versino (Università di Pisa, IT), Irene Zanardi (Università della Svizzera italiana, CH), and Young Researcher and Innovator Coordinator Anna Szlavi (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NO) have designed a video featuring short interviews to promote IT, as well as EUGAIN, to young people in Generation Z.
The workshop continued with the second session “European Champions in Gender Equality in Informatics”, chaired by Simona Motogna (Babeş-Bolyai University, RO), where we could learn from the best practices towards gender balance in informatics departments across Europe, with presentations by Daniela Nicklas (University of Bamberg, DE), Svetlana Hensman (TU Dublin, IE), Laura Kovács and Gerti Kappel (TU Wien, AT), and Anne Siegel and Nicolas Markey (IRISA, FR).
In the third session, we enjoyed a nice networking activity under the coordination of Maria Roussou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, GR) and Barbora Buhnova (Masaryk University, CZ). Then, we continued in the fourth session a panel discussion with the speakers from the second session, with numerous insightful points guiding the audience toward improving gender balance in informatics institutions.
In the fifth session, we heard inspirational stories of the path toward PhD from EUGAIN young researchers and investigators, Karolina Bolesta (Warsaw School of Economics, PL), Serena Versino (Università di Pisa, IT), Sonay Caner-Yildirim (Erzincan Binali Yildirm University, TR), Irene Zanardi (Università della Svizzera italiana, CH), and Sunny Miranda (University of Coimbra, PT).
The workshop concluded with the sixth session, where Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic (Chalmers University of Technology, SE) presented her inspirational journey to the current research topics in the intersection of technology and ethics.
National Informatics Associations “Open Science” Workshop
Together with the National Informatics Associations (NIAs), the IE Working Group on Open Science co-organised this year’s NIAs workshop in discussing three topics under the theme “Open Science and the Future of Research Dissemination in Informatics”:
- The Role of Informatics Conferences, featuring talks by Carlo Ghezzi (Politecnico di Milano, IT) and Stefano Paraboschi (Gruppo di Ingegneria Informatica/University of Bergamo, IT);
- Open Access Publication Models for Informatics, featuring talks by Roberto Di Cosmo (Inria/Software Heritage, FR), Laurent Romary (IRISA, FR), and Welmoed Spahr (Apress/Spring Nature Books Group);
- Open Data and Research Data Management in Informatics, featuring a talk by Michael Goedicke (University of Duisburg-Essen, DE).
The work initiated at the workshop will be pursued further in three Task Forces under WG Open Science, with the following goals: a white paper on the future of Informatics conferences and quality indicators for the conference publishing process (TF Conference Maturity Model); an analysis and position paper on Open Access publishing approaches, in particular the rapidly growing pay-to-publish model (TF Open Access); and a proposal for a common metadata scheme to support research data interoperability in Informatics (TF Research Data Management).
In general, the tensions between indicator-based and qualitative research assessment were raised several times at the workshop, and the workshop commissioned from IE a descriptive report on best practices in research assessment across Europe, to be compiled in collaboration with the NIAs. All participants and the community at large were also encouraged to sign the COARA Agreement for reforming research assessment.
ECSS 2023 in Edinburgh, UK
The next Summit, ECSS 2023, will be hosted by the School of Informatics, University of Edinburg, UK. It will be again a unique opportunity to join your international peers to debate the future of Informatics and contribute to a stronger European informatics community.
Save the dates on your calendar: ECSS 2023, 23-25 October 2023 – we look forward to welcoming you again in the annual European Computer Science Summit next year!
To revisit the ECSS presentations, please check out the slides now available to download on our conference schedule webpage. Individual highlights and workshop photos* are also available under respective workshop/session pages.
*Please note that the photos below are better viewed when applying zoom out.
