Overview

The department interacts actively with society, both through its research and teaching. Various research collaborations help to disseminate the knowledge and skills of the department to all levels of society. The MScs who graduate from the department gain employment in challenging positions in companies and other organisations. The department is a popular partner for collaborations and its graduates sought after on the job market, proving how important the teaching and research carried out at the department are to society at large.

Research collaboration

The department and HIIT carry out scientific cooperation with the industries, public sector, and other academic communities.

Annually, companies fund a significant part of the research projects carried out at the department and HIIT, both directly and through Tekes programmes, showing how relevant the research at the department is to the industries. Research collaboration is also carried out in EU-funded programmes involving the corporate world. Our partners include companies in the fields of IT and data communications, media, language services, electronics and medicine. The researchers at the department and HIIT also act as consultants and organise corporate classes. The research at the department and HIIT has given rise to several spin-off companies.

Both the department and HIIT are very active in cooperating with the public sector and academic research institutes. The methods and software developed at the department may be of great significance in other fields of use, and thereby in society as a whole. The development of computational methods in medical genetics, for example, has facilitated the discovery of new genes, which in turn may lead to better methods for care and diagnostics.

Teaching

As a rule, graduates from the department find employment in their own field -- in fact, most of them gain employment while they are still undergraduates. Most PhDs are also employed by companies. The relevance between syllabus and job market is monitored in cooperation with employers.

Alumni contacts

The goal of alumni contacts is the cooperation between alumni, undergraduates and researchers, to benefit all parties and society as a whole.

For the alumni, this offers the opportunity to meet old friends and teachers, create new contacts, cooperation in teaching and research, influencing the work of the department, recruiting new graduates from the department, and keeping up to date with what is happening at the department and the university.

The alumni cooperation at the Department of Computer Science started in autumn 2008. A group of former students started to organise an alumni association, and at the same time, the department started to organise alumni events in cooperation with the association. The first alumni event organised by the department was the open-door event on 17 October 2008, and especially the informal get-together arranged at the same time. Preliminarily, the department is planning on having one alumni event per year as well as an electronic newsletter on current issues.

The department hopes for expert views on the development of teaching, degrees and research from the alumni. They can participate in MSc thesis supervision, give guest lectures, or speak at expositions on the job market. The department also hopes to gain influence on society through its alumni, by such methods as disseminating views based on research and science, as well as gaining visibility and appreciation for the IT field and the department. To improve contacts between undergraduates and the job market, the goal is to organise primary traineeships and to establish a grants fund financed by alumni.

The science-teaching cooperation with upper-secondary schools in the greater Helsinki area

The department offers upper-secondary pupils in the metropolitan area the opportunity to study university-level computer science while they are still at school. This science teaching has been implemented in cooperation with several upper secondary schools in the greater Helsinki area. Under the auspices of this cooperation, pupils at upper secondary schools may attend basic courses in computer science. The credits gained can be incorporated in the school syllabus as approved by the school, and they will be considered for the computer science degree if the student enters the university as an undergraduate in time.

Standardisation

The department takes active part in the standardisation of the Internet, e.g. in the Internet development community and other leading associations.

Memberships in associations

The department participates in the associations for open source code, both internationally and nationally.

In Finland, the department is a member in the Digital Media Services Association (DIMES), among others. Its purpose is to promote the development of technology and service innovations in the ICT field in Finland, and to promote industriousness, healhty business practices, cutting-edge research, and the general conditions for development and enterprise.

Public image

In its societal interaction, the department strives to show the significance of computer science in different areas of society, and thus promote the demand for high-end skills and experts in information processing. Presented through various forums, this message is aimed both at authorities deciding on research and education funding and at young people deciding on their future career.