The department is a dynamic and growing environment for research and education with around 300 employees. The activity covers a wide range of areas, from core computer science to applications of science. It is oriented towards both the Faculty of Science and Engineering, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
The research activity at IDA is mainly performed within four major areas, each divided into a number of subareas:
- Artificial intelligence (AI) with the subareasof autonomous systems and robotics, knowledge representation and reasoning, ontologies and semantic web, automated planning, applied machine learning, multi-agent systems, natural language processing, and theoretical foundations of AI.
- Cognition, interaction and design with the subareas of cognitive science, cognitive systems engineering, interaction design, service design, public safety and security, decision support, human factors, and social robotics.
- Software and computer systems with the subareas of software engineering, embedded and cyberphysical systems, real-time systems, cyber security and resilient systems, networks and distributed systems, multimedia systems, formal methods, compilers and programming language, and parallel and high performance computing.
- Data science with the subareas of machine learning methodology, statistics, database technology, and data analytics.
The broad research base of the department directly enriches the undergraduate and graduate education. The department gives courses within most engineering programmes, several Master programmes, as well as the programmes for innovative programming, cognitive science and statistics.
IDA also offers doctoral education in computer science, design, cognitive science and statistics. Currently, around 90 postgraduate students are active in the department’s PhD programmes.
The department was founded in 1983, but its roots can be traced to the early seventies. It is organised in six divisions.