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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 following groups were selected to Infotech Oulu as full members:
- Circuits and Systems Group (CAS - Oulu)
- Intelligent Systems Group (ISG)
- Center for Machine Vision Research (CMV), former Machine Vision Group (MVG)
- MediaTeam Oulu
- Wireless Communication Systems Group (WICS)
and as associate members:
- Biomedical Engineering Research Group (BME)
- Electronic Materials, Packaging and Reliability Techniques (EMPART)
- Human Interaction with Advanced Mobile Services and Intelligent Environments (INTERACT)
The associate members do not receive direct funding from Infotech Oulu, but the doctoral students in these groups can apply for doctoral program positions. In addition, all the groups can apply for special funding from the University of Oulu through Infotech Oulu.
Information technology is designated as one of the four focus research areas of the University of Oulu, including machine vision and ubiquitous computing, wireless communications, high-speed electronics and photonics, biomedical engineering, and information systems. The main research areas of Infotech Oulu are
- electronics
- communications engineering
- computer science and information engineering
Funding
Infotech Oulu Umbrella Organization
The University of Oulu provided special funding of EUR 400 000 for Infotech Oulu in 2011. About 75% of this was directed to the support of the full member groups. For the year 2011, EUR 748 000 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. 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. This total funding was EUR 1 256 000 in 2011. During the last few years, Infotech Oulu been able to apply for special funding from the University of Oulu (funding for infrastructure and for international recruitment of researchers). Adding this special funding, the total funding was EUR 2 072 000. The table below shows the total funding in 2011, excluding any funding of their own that the research groups may have.
Source |
EUR |
University of Oulu, basic funding |
400 000 |
Ministry of Education and Culture |
748 000 |
Academy of Finland
|
108 000 |
total |
1 256 000
|
University of Oulu, |
|
|
516 000 |
- international recruitment
|
300 000 |
all total |
2 072 000 |
Research Groups
The research groups are funded mainly externally. The total sum of annual external funding for the full members was EUR 12.5 million in 2011. Total external research funding, including that for the associate members, was EUR 16.4 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 well over one third of our external funding.
The following table shows the total external
funding of the research groups in 2011. All the funding of the full member
groups is channeled through the university, whereas the total funding includes
also some funding channeled through VTT. The external funding increased by
about 6% from the previous year.
Source |
full members |
all |
Academy of Finland |
2 691 000 |
3 400 000 |
Ministry of Education and Culture |
949 000 |
1 272 000 |
Tekes |
4 761 000 |
6 329 000 |
other domestic public
|
771 000 |
811 000 |
domestic private
|
1 029 000 |
1 460 000 |
international
|
2 252 000 |
3 095 000 |
total |
12 453 000 |
16 367 000 |
Personnel
The number of personnel in the full member research groups of Infotech Oulu was 279 at the end of 2011. The total number of personnel, including the associate members, was 357. When this is compared to the previous year on the research group level, there has been a small decrease. Personnel from abroad represents 28.9% of the total staff, and 32.1% 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.
Position |
full members |
all |
professor |
24 |
36 |
other senior or post-doctoral researcher |
53 |
78 |
doctoral student |
127 |
168 |
other |
75 |
75 |
total |
279 |
357 |
person years |
199 |
243 |
Publications
The number of the refereed papers of the research groups are represented in the following table.
Publication |
full members |
all |
journal article (refereed), original research |
85 |
157 |
review article, |
2 |
2 |
book section, chapters in research books |
18 |
19 |
conference |
189 |
217 |