 The Voice of Informatics Research and Education in Europe | |
| Formation | 2006 |
|---|---|
| Type | Learned Society - Nonprofit organization |
| Headquarters | Zurich, Switzerland |
| Members | Around 200 institutions (over 30 countries) |
Official language | English |
| Website | http://www.informatics-europe.org |
Informatics Europe is the European association uniting university departments, research labs and companies in the field of informatics (also known as computer science).
Founded in 2006, Informatics Europe is a non-profit organization with head office in Zurich, Switzerland. They represent the Research and Education community in Europe, uniting some 200 member institutions and connecting over 50,000 researchers in informatics and related disciplines from more than 30 countries. Informatics Europe members include university departments of Informatics (Computer Science, Computing, IT, ICT), public and private research labs as well as national informatics associations.
Informatics Europe liaises with other scientific organisations such as the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Computing Research Association (CRA).
On 21 October 2005, the “1st European Computer Science Summit” brought together, for the first time, heads of Informatics and Computer Science departments throughout Europe. This landmark event was a joint undertaking of the Computer Science departments of the two branches of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology: EPFL (Lausanne) and ETH (Zurich).
Besides the keynotes, talks, panels and workshops, the result of the summit was the unanimous view that European computer scientists needed an organisation with aims and scope similar to those of the CRA in the US, extended—in light of the situation in Europe—to cover education as well as research. As a result, Informatics Europe was created with the aim to become the recognized voice of the European computer science community, including both universities and research centres.
Bertrand Meyer from ETH Zurich, one of the founding members of the organisation, served as its first President from 2006 to 2011. Other former Presidents include Carlo Ghezzi, Politecnico di Milano (from 2012 to 2015), Lynda Hardman, CWI / Utrecht University (from 2016 to 2017), Enrico Nardelli, Università di Roma 'Tor Vergata', (from 2018 to 2023). The current President is Jean-Marc Jézéquel, IRISA/ University of Rennes, who took office since January 2024.
Informatics Europe mission is to empower and unite the European informatics community, find concerted positions, act on shared priorities, and support policy-making in Education, Research, and the Social Impact of informatics in Europe. They do so by addressing strategic matters and emerging trends in informatics and related fields, fostering unity in the variety of their member institutions, and promoting pan-European collaboration.
Informatics Europe is involved in a number of activities and services. While some are exclusive to members (and researchers affiliated with those institutes), others are open to the broader informatics and related disciplines community.
The European Informatics Leaders Summit is open to the broad informatics community. It takes place once a year and offers a platform where leaders and decision-makers in Informatics and related disciplines in Europe gather to debate strategic themes and trends related to informatics research, education and its social impact. Originally the European Computer Science Summit, ECSS has been renamed since 2024 in celebration of its 20th anniversary and to reaffirm the core value and importance of the Summit to informatics leaders and communities across Europe.
Past Summits since 2005:
Informatics Europe fosters various working groups to shape strategic priorities within the European Informatics community. Each working group has thereby a focus on a specific topic or goal that is agreed upon at the beginning of each year. The current groups are as follows:
Past working groups:
Each year, Informatics Europe presents awards recognizing outstanding initiatives that advance the quality of research and education in Informatics in Europe.
Since 2023, the Best Dissertation Award aims to support young researchers in informatics by rewarding and disseminating their excellent research. The award criteria include the originality of the research and methods used, the quality of the achieved results, the societal impact of the thesis, and the quality of the exposition.
Since 2016, the Minerva Informatics Equality Award recognizes best practices in Departments or Faculties of European Universities and Research Labs that encourage and support the careers of women in Informatics research and education.
Since 2012, the Best Practices in Education Award recognizes educational initiatives across Europe that improve the quality of Informatics teaching and the attractiveness of the discipline. At present the award is on hold, awaiting sponsor.
