Faculty of Informatics

Established in October 2004, the Faculty of Informatics of the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) is dedicated to high quality teaching and research in informatics and computer science. Teaching excellence is assured by an international faculty, low student/faculty ratio and a modern, innovative curriculum. The bachelor program is project-based and comprises of six semesters of highly integrated courses and team-oriented projects. The graduate program consists of a two-year Master's program and a research-oriented PhD program. The language of instruction is English. The faculty is active in research with focus on all aspects of software-intensive systems, with particular strengths in software engineering, distributed systems and networks. The Faculty of Informatics stands out as a centre of competence in advanced informatics, in a matter of very few years, it has become one of Switzerland’s major poles for teaching and research, ranking third after the two Federal Institutes of Technology, Zürich and Lausanne. The Faculty aims to train informatics experts that are interdisciplinary in approach, with abstract thinking and generalization skills, a sound knowledge in the application fields of information technologies, as well as project-management and teamwork abilities.

The Faculty consists of six Full, six Associate and twelve Assistant Professors. Moreover the Department includes two institutes and an associate institute: the Advanced Learning and Research Institute (ALaRI – www.alari.ch) offering a Master in Embedded Systems Design; the Institute of Computational Science (ICS – www.ics.inf.usi.ch); and the Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA – www.idsia.ch).

The bachelor program offered by the Faculty of Informatics consists of an innovative, project-based, team-oriented curriculum of six semesters. The bachelor students have opportunities for summer internships both at companies and at the university. In the first five semesters, students work on group projects. In the sixth semester, they work on an individual final project in which they use all their acquired knowledge to solve an interesting problem. The bachelor programme emphasizes mathematical and theoretical foundations, technology, and soft skills such as communication and teamwork. The specialisations offered by the faculty are Informatics, and Applied Mathematics and Computational Science.

To obtain a Master in Informatics degree, students should pass a number of courses worth at least 120 ECTS, including the thesis (worth 30 ECTS). In addition to the Master in Informatics' degree, a student can obtain a major in a particular area by taking at least 30 ECTS worth of courses in that area. The Faculty of Informatics currently offers six majors: Software Design (Msd), Distributed Systems (Mds), Intelligent Systems (Mis), Embedded Systems Design (MSc), Applied Mathematics and Computational Science (Mcs) and Geometric and Visual Computing (Mgvc). The Faculty also offer a new Master jointly with the Faculty of Economics, Management & Informatics. The programmes stretch over two years and allow students to personalise their study curricula according to their individual interests. In the first semester students attend courses to acquire the basic knowledge. The second and third semesters are dedicated to specialised courses and electives. Students complete their curriculum with electives that can be chosen among courses offered by this and other related programmes offered by the university (if necessary, by consulting with the Master's coordinator). The last semester is dedicated to the writing of a thesis in the specialised Masters degree. In the Master's degree in Applied informatics (Mai) programme (worth 90 ECTS) the 30 ECTS thesis is replaced by a 24 ECTS applied project.

The Ph.D. program promotes the development of new professionals interested in academic or industrial research careers. A successful Ph.D. student will gain a broad knowledge and understanding of the general field of informatics, as well as an in-depth specialization in an area of interest. Working with one or more members of the Faculty, the student will contribute original, useful, and scientifically valid ideas in their chosen area of research. In addition, the student will develop professional skills that will serve them throughout their career.