Annual Report 2014

Annual Report 2014

Department statistics 2014

Staff

In 2014, 168.7 person-years were completed at the department, which is 5.7 person-years more than the previous year. A total of 100.6 person-years were completed on basic funding and 68.1 on external funding.

If viewed according to the four-tier scale for teaching and research staff, over half the person-years were completed on the lowest tier of the career structure (research assistants and doctoral students). The increase in external funding has been boosting especially the first tier of the career structure in the past years. In spite of the increase in external funding, the number of person-years completed on external funding decreased in 2014, as the funding was geared more towards developing the infra-structure. Basic funding is also used to support doctoral students, but mainly the person-years completed on basic funding have increased on the 2nd-4th steps (professors, university lecturers and post-doctoral researchers) of the tenure track. The aim of increasing the number of post-doctoral researchers, which has been entered into the staff policy, has been successful both on external and project funding.

In 2014, there were some significant recruitment processes carried out at the department. The vacancy for assistant professor in information management was filled. The negotiations with the person selected for the post, however, were carried on into 2015. The appointment of professor in data security progressed quickly during autumn 2014, and Valtteri Niemi was invited to the post starting on 1 January 2015. Heidi Kinnunen, who had been substituting for the post of financial and HR secretary, received a permanent position from 1 January 2015. At the end of December, the recruitment of another university lecturer (head of studies) was initiated, since Jakko Kurhila, who had held the post, was elected director of the Open University.

In 2014, the average age of the department staff was 35.6. During the past five years, the average age has varied between 34.2 and 36.4. The strong internationalisation drive continues at the department. In 2014, employees from abroad completed 31.9% of the person-years at the department, while the number was only 16.6% in 2010. The number of person-years completed by women increased with two percent from the previous year to 20.3%.

Funding

The total funding in 2014 was 12.19 Million Euros. The total funding grew by 0.49 Million compared to year 2013. Most of the funding went to staff expenses and facilities.

In the past years, the basic funding allocated to the department has been distributed in accordance with the previous year’s funding.  This means that the basic funding has remained at over 5 Million Euros. In addition to the regular basic funding, in 2014 the department received additional funding for such purposes as postgraduate schools and the new doctoral programme, three centres of excellence, and two research groups that received much acclaim in the evaluation of research. The faculty conferred exit funding to the ending centre of excellence, as well as strategic funding for a development project on teaching and research in data security.

In 2014, the department gained 5.42 Million Euros in external funding. It was especially the funding from Tekes and the EU that grew considerably. However, the funding from the Finnish Academy decreased significantly due to the centre of excellence being brought to a close. External funding has especially been boosted by the successful funding applications of the new professors and principal investigators. Besides being important to the department financially, external funding is also evidence of our success in a toughening competition. Having such a large part of the total funding depending on external backers, however, makes for added insecurity, especially when making long-term plans.

Teaching

The department’s investment in high-standard instruction and development of education is evident e.g. from the awards gained in 2014: our student teams came first in the SibHack competition and 4th in the NWERC programming competition. Keijonen, Kurhila and Vihavainen received the Benjamin J. Dasher award for their publication on developing education at the Frontiers in Education conference. Furthermore, our MOOC course was elected one of the success stories at the Avoin Suomi 2014 (Open Finland 2014) expo. Among our innovations let us name the new learning environment, Exact Greenhouse.

The 2014 teaching statistics indicate that our students broke a new record – again – in gathering credits since adopting the two-tiered degree structure. This time the record broke every record: the previous year’s result – 693 credits per person-year – was beaten by nearly 7% (now 740 cr / person-year). The deviation last year, with more Master’s degrees than Bachelor’s degrees, normalised with 76 BSc degrees and 51 MSc degrees. The apparent slump in the number of MSc degrees will most likely even out in the statistics for next year.

Research

During the strategy period 2013-2016, the research at the department still focuses on three main areas: machine learning and algorithms, networks and services, and software systems. During year 2014, the research in all the department’s focal areas was still very actively described in writing. In 2014, the researchers at the department produced 188 refereed publications and a total of 227 publications. There was a considerable increase in the number of refereed journal articles, while the number of conference papers decreased. The writers of three articles received the award for best conference paper in 2014;  N. Asokan and Markus Miettinen (ASIA CCS 2014), Fabian Fagerholm (EASE 2014) , as well as Arto Vihavainen (ACM SIGITE 2014). Further, Hansi Keijonen, Jaakko Kurhila, and Arto Vihavainen received the Benjamin J. Dasher award for the best article and presentation at the previous year’s IEEE Frontiers in Education conference. Aaron Yi Ding, Markku Kojo, and Sasu Tarkoma, in turn, received the ACM SIGCOM CCR award for the best article in the Computer Communication Review journal. 

During 2014, the researchers of the department also participated very actively in the programme committees of various conferences and the editing staff of journals. In addition, some researchers acted as chairs of programme committees and editors for special issues of scientific journals. The department researchers, headed by Professor Jürgen Münch and Professor Tomi Männistö, were in charge of the 2014 PROFES conference (International Conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement), along with its associated events in Helsinki. Professor Giulio Jacucci and his team, in turn, were responsible for arrangements of the 2014 Symbiotic workshop (International Workshop on Symbiotic Interaction), and professor Sasu Tarkoma took part in the organisation of the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI) Community Forum 2014. Invited conference presentations were given by University Lecturer Patrik Floréen (iCareNet 2014) and Professor Aapo Hyvärinen (NeuroStats 2014) in 2014.  

The research of the department gained much visibility in different media during 2014. The most significant publicity was gained by the Discovery group headed by Professor Hannu Toivonen, with its research into computational creativity, which was widely presented in Finnish as well as international newspapers, radio and television. As in the previous year, both Professor Sasu Tarkoma and his team studying energy consumption in mobile device applications and the department’s MOOC instruction gained much media visibility.

In 2014, department research groups were part of three national centres of excellence selected by the Finnish Academy. These units are the CoE for computational inference, COIN; the CoE for research into cancer genetics; and the CoE for inverse problems, which have been elected to the centre-of-excellence programme 2012-2017. Professor Petri Myllymäki and his team participate in the COIN unit, Professor Veli Mäkinen and his team in the cancer genetics group, and Professor Aapo Hyvärinen in the inverse-problem group. Earlier, the department’s unit for algorithmic data analysis (Algodan), headed by Professor Esko Ukkonen, was a part of this national centre-of-excellence programme until the end of 2013.