Staff

In 2010, 158 person-years were completed at the department.There were 66 person-years completed on external funding, which is 13 less than the previous year.On basic funding, 92 person-years were carried out, i.e. 4.5 less than the previous year.

Since the basic funding for the department dropped considerably compared to the previous year, basic funding was primarily used to hire substitutes or to strengthen the research fields of new professorships, as planned in the staff policy.

In its staff policy, the department has implemented the 4-stage structure for teaching and research staff at the university. The title of Researcher is no longer used, for example.

The average age of department employees was 36.4 years.It had risen from the previous year (33.3 years).

Funding

The total funding of the department was 10.86 Million Euros. The total funding dropped by 0.7MEUR from year 2009.

As in the years before, the basic funding was augmented by external funding, which means fixed-term funding (centre-of-excellence funding, funding for being a centre of excellence in university education, funding based on research evaluation). In all, the available basic funds dropped by 0.9MEUR from last year.

The external-funding percentage of total funding increased, being 4.4MEUR. The largest increases came from Tekes and the Academy of Finland. External funding is very important to the department, and it also indicates success in the competitive bid for funding. However, its considerable percentage of total funding adds to our insecurity, especially when planning for the long term.

In 2010, the funding was primarily used for salaries and facilities.

The changes brought about by the university reform, the implementation of new information systems, and changes in reporting practices made it harder to plan and follow up finances, especially when it comes to external funding.

Teaching

In 2010, less resources were used in teaching than before, as the amount of part-time teaching was cut back considerably.Except for the part-time teaching, the number of instructors and classes remained at the same level as previous years.Studies were completed at an excellent pace, as the accumulation of credits in relation to the number of person-years is outstanding.The result of year 2010, 554 credits per person-year, is a record for the department, as the previous top year, 2008 (with 532 credits per person-year), was caused by the ending of the transition period for the new degree system and a veritable flood of MSc theses.

Following the pattern of previous years, the number of BSc degrees is much larger than MSc degrees, though we can see a slight increase in MSc degrees, as well.In 2010, there were still a lot of students taking their BSc degree who had started their degree programme under the old degree system.In this two-stage degree system, the clear division between BSc and MSc degrees emphasises the significance of the BSc degree as an independent degree.

Research

After a slight drop it seems that the department has increased its output of publications again, and the findings in all focal areas of research at the department were publicised abundantly.  Jussi Kangasharju’s and Mikko Pervilä’s research into weather-proofing computers attracted special attention. Aapo Hyvärinen rose into the Thomson ISI Highly Cited Researcher category as the first Finnish computer scientist. Leena Salmela, Katja Astikainen and Eemil Lagerspetz were awarded for best conference paper, conference poster, or conference demo, and Petri Kontkanen and Pauli Miettinen both received honourable mention for their PhD theses in international thesis competitions.

In 2010, a new research database system called Tuhat was implemented at the university. In the Tuhat system, researchers can enter their publications as well as other activities (awards, visits, editing jobs, conference participation and organisation, memberships in committees, supervision of theses including PhD theses, and appearances on various forums).  Contrary to older research databases, the researchers actually enter their own data into the Tuhat system.  The system will also be used to compile the information (2010-2012) for the evaluation of research and doctoral education at the university; this has motivated researchers to keep their Tuhat entries up to date.

At the beginning of year 2011, old publication information was transferred from the old publication system (JULKI).After many control rounds, in which the researchers participated actively, the information in the Tuhat database was updated so well that the drop in publications that we feared would be the result turned out to be a myth. This means that the number of publications for the whole period (2005-2010) has risen from what has been listed in previous annual reports. After 2005, the number of publ8ications did drop, hitting rock bottom in 2007.But then the numbers levelled out and in 2010 we are happy to announce that we are back at the level of top year 2005. In 2010, the department scientists published 165 refereed publications, and a total of 228 publications.Sol omnibus lucet.