Research activities

Research activities at The Department of Computer and Informastion Science is organized with a basis in various research groups. Group boundaries follow the dicipline's traditional way of defining itself in sub-diciplines, more or less.

The department's Committee of Research has as its main responsibility to develop (continuously) the department's research strategy. Among other things, the committee also approves or rejects applications for doctoral studies, recommends or rejects applications for conference and travel fundings etc.

The departement has the following research groups:

• Algorithm Construction and Visualization
• Computer Architecture and Design
• Database Systems
• Information Management
• Software Engineering
• Design and Use of Information Systems
• Information Systems
• Knowledge-Based Systems
• Self-Organizing Systems
• Logic and Language Technology
• Intelligent Learning Arenas

Research groups are clustered in divisions. Divisions serve, however, mainly administrative purposes in connection with the organisation of teaching activities, internal communication and physical organisation. Links to the various divisions are found in the box to the left.

Research projects are of course not exclusively organized and run within one single research group, and also not necessarily isolated within the department itself. In many cases, more than one group is involved in a project, and collaboration with other departments, universities and with industry partners is a normal mode of operation. This applies of course especially when activities are rooted in application areas rather than in "pure" informatics. Currently, the department has given special attention to the following application areas:

• Bio-informatics
• ICT and learning
• Health informatics

Doctoral Degrees

NTNU awards two different degrees on doctoral level:

• Dr. philos. ("Doctor philosophiae")
• PhD

The dr. philos. degree is awarded solely on basis of a submitted thesis which then is publicly defended in front of a committee. During her/his work, the candidate shall in this case not have received any supervision. Hence, the dr. philos. degree is the degree awarded to the researcher/scientist who submits her/his thesis on basis of the research (s)he har ben doing over time. For more information about the dr. philos. degree, please contact senior advisor Tore Jørgensen at the IME faculty administration.

PhD Programmes

As with the dr. philos. degree, a PhD is also awarded on basis of a publicly defended thesis. In this case, however, the thesis is the result of 3-5 years of supervised doctoral studies. PhD students are admitted into doctoral programs on basis of their grades from their MSc/MEng studies (or equivalent).

With their relatively large numer (57), the department's doctoral students represent the major part of the departmet's research activities measured in hours spent per activity.

We have prepared a separate page describing details concerning Starting Doctoral Studies.