University of Oulu
INFOTECH OULU

Infotech Oulu Research Groups

The research of Infotech Oulu is carried out in groups. The research groups mainly operate in those laboratories and departments where their directors are working. The selection of Infotech Oulu research groups is for a four-year period, and it is based on external scientific evaluation of the research presented by the applicants. For the period 2010–2013, five groups were selected as full members, and three groups as associate members. Some of them are joint groups at the University of Oulu and VTT Technical Research Centre. The evaluators are internationally renowned scientists in information technology: Professor Hans Zappe from the University of Freiburg, Germany, Professor Willy Sansen from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, Professor Anja Skrivervik from EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland and Professor Tuomas Sandholm from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA.

The following groups were selected to Infotech Oulu as full members:

and  as associate members:

The associate members do not receive direct funding from Infotech Oulu, but the doctoral students in these groups can apply for doctoral program positions.

Information technology is designated as one of the four focus research areas of the University of Oulu, including machine vision and ubiquitous computing technologies, wireless communications, high-speed electronics and photonics, biomedical engineering, and information systems and software. The main research areas of Infotech Oulu are

  • electronics
  • communications engineering
  • computer science and information engineering

Funding

The University of Oulu provided special funding of EUR 400 000 for Infotech Oulu in 2010. About 75% of this was directed to the support of the full member groups. For the year 2010, EUR 726 500 was granted by the Ministry of Education and Culture to the Infotech Oulu Doctoral Program for its 25 student positions and a coordinator position. In addition, the Academy of Finland granted EUR 430 000 for the years 2010–2013. From this sum, EUR 107 500 was for the year 2010. This funding was for arranging courses given by visiting experts and for covering traveling costs of doctoral students when taking part in conferences or working abroad.

The research is mainly funded externally. The total sum of annual external funding for the full members was EUR 11.8 million in 2010. Total external research funding, including that for the associate members, was EUR 15.5 million. Only about a quarter of the research work is financed through internal funding in the form of salaries of professors, research assistants, etc., excluding their estimated time used for teaching. The main source of financial support is Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, representing over one third of our external funding.

The following table shows the total external funding of the research groups in 2010, including the associate members. Also the funding for the full members is presented in parenthesis. All the funding of the full member groups is channeled through the university, whereas the total funding includes also funding channeled through VTT. The sums cannot be compared directly to the previous year, because the groups are no longer the same. When looking at the funding on the research group level, it can be seen that there has been a small increase in the total sum.

 

Source

EUR

Academy of Finland

3 380  000
(2 385 000)

Ministry of Education and Culture (doctoral programs)

1 130 000
(725 000)

Tekes

4 879 000
(3 788 000)

other domestic public

367 000
(367 000)

domestic private

1 874 000
(1 487 000)

international

3 856 000
(3 042 000)

total

15 486 000
(11 794 000)

 

Personnel

The number of personnel in the full member research groups of Infotech Oulu was 287 at the end of 2010. The total number of personnel, including the associate members, was 376. When this is compared to the previous year on the research group level, there has been a small increase, like in external funding. Personnel from abroad represents 21.2% of the total staff, and 27.8% of the doctoral students. The table below shows the total number of personnel in different positions. The personnel in the full member groups is in parenthesis. The number of professors also includes acting professors, FidiPro professors and VTT’s research professors. The number of the university nominated professors participating in the activities of the groups is about 25. The category “others” includes Master’s level students, secretaries and other support staff. Almost 95% of the personnel work at the University of Oulu, and almost all the others at VTT. Two of the groups have an associate director from VTT.

 

professors

36 (23)

other senior and postdoctoral
researchers

63 (42)

doctoral students

184 (129)

others

93 (93)

total

376 (287)

person years

251 (202)