Entrepreneurial Research University – 16 Sep 2008 Estonian Computer Science: How to Make it Relevant? Marlon Dumas Institute of Computer Science University of Tartu

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

3 Reality Disconnect Theories, models, research methods/ artifacts Computer Science Research ‘Academic’ issues IT Industry Practical solutions Practical Problems 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: –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 Strengths Awareness of the current situation Pockets of excellence in some areas Strong academic culture Open doors for cross-disciplinary research Weaknesses Fragmentation Lack of talent pipeline Lack of capacity in key areas Lack of use-inspired research culture Lack of international visibility Opportunities EU membership  wealth of funding and collaboration opportunities Government commitment to develop Estonia’s IT profile Small size  easier to collaborate Threats Potential PhD students attracted abroad Continued loss of awareness / credibility vis- à-vis of industry Reduced funding due to economic slowdown

10 EXCS: Estonian Centre of Excellence in Computer Science (EXCS) National centre of excellence 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 1.To consolidate and advance the Estonian CS research in six focus areas driven by cross- institutional research groups 2.To increase the awareness and impact of CS research results in academia, industry and society.

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

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 October 2008 Free registration (limited numbers) Monday 27 OctoberTuesday 28 October Business Mashups (Stefan Tai – University of Karlsruhe) Agile Methods & Enterprise Architecture (Bartek Kiepuzsewski – Cutter Consortium) Cloud Computing (Stefan Tai) Business Process Modeling (Arthur ter Hofstede, QUT, Australia) Rich Internet ApplicationsOpen-Source Workflow Management (Arthur ter Hofstede)

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