Research at the Department are mainly funded by external resources. The main funders are the Academy of Finland, the National Technology Agency (TEKES), the Ministry of Education and the European Commission research programmes. All projects funded by TEKES also have partial funding by industrial partners.
In the research assessment exercise of 1999, the quality of the research activities of the whole University of Helsinki were assessed by international peer review panels. The Department of Computer Science was assessed together with the Departments of Mathematics and Statistics and the Rolf Nevanlinna Institute by a panel consisting of five international and national professors in the fields. The panel acquainted itself with the materials presented to it (selected publications, a publication list, research statistics, description of research fields, etc.) and visited the Department. It gave the Department an overall rating (7/7) and a short written assessment. The assessment helps the Department to organise its own research.
In their final report the panel wrote about the Department of Computer Science:
``Although it has existed only for a few decades, the computer science department
is a first class academic department. The senior researchers have had a part in
defining the agenda of international computer science research, they have lead
and organised multidisciplinary and industrial research and they are extremely
well tied in internationally. The tradition started several decades ago that
the leading figures of the department sometimes work and publish together, is
extremely valuable and could serve as a good example. The Department has shown,
with the developments of string matching methodology, frequent episodes and
Bayesian modelling in data mining, advanced modelling tools for complex
stochastic systems, and the operating system LINUX, that it is a place where
great ideas can be created. It addresses many pressing needs of society in its
search for an academic software engineering discipline. The Ph.D.s from the
Department have usually risen rapidly in the ranks of academia and industry.''
More information about the research assessment exercise,
including the final report,
can be found on the web page http://savotta.helsinki.fi/researcheval.
In 1999, researchers at the Department published 57 peer reviewed journal, conference and collection articles; staff members were editors of two conference proceedings, and one textbook was published. In addition, there were technical reports, articles popularising science, etc., 49 other publications altogether.
| Publications (number of) | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 |
| Books | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| Journal articles | 11 | 19 | 16 | 10 | 11 |
| Peer reviewed conference and collection articles | 41 | 47 | 70 | 64 | 46 |
| Other publications | 34 | 76 | 60 | 54 | 49 |
| Total | 87 | 143 | 149 | 128 | 109 |
Out of the 57 refereed articles 48 were published in high-quality publication series. In 1999, researchers at the Department gave six invited lectures at international conferences (the number is included in the number of peer reviewed conference and collection articles in the table above).
The main sources of research funding are the Academy of Finland, the National Technology Agency (TEKES), the Ministry of Education and the European Commission (EC) research programmes. All projects funded by TEKES also have partial funding by industrial partners.
| Research funding (106 FIM) | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | % (1999) | |
| Academy of Finland | 1.6 | 2.4 | 1.2 | 1.7 | 2.3 | 21 | |
| TEKES & industry | 4.3 | 3.4 | 4.4 | 5.1 | 7.1 | 64 | |
| European Commission | -- | 0.9 | 1.8 | 1.4 | 1.4 | 12 | |
| Other | 0.1 | 0.6 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 3 | |
| Total | 6.0 | 7.3 | 8.1 | 8.5 | 11.1 | 100 |
In 1999, the Academy of Finland funded 8.6 manpower years, the National
Technology Agency (TEKES) and industry 22.8 manpower years, the European
Commission 4.5 manpower years and other funders 1.1 manpower years. All together,
37.0 manpower years were funded by these research funding institutions.
As a certain metric of quality the Faculty of Science considers the amount of
Academy funding per Ph.D.-level researcher, in 1999 this metric was 92.000 FIM.
A new research institute, the Helsinki Institute of Information Technology (HIIT) was founded in 1999 as a joint venture between the University of Helsinki and the Helsinki University of Technology. Its main goal is to provide facilities as well as funding for top researchers in computer science and engineering. The institute will cooperate with both national and foreign institutions.
The Department collaborated with the University of Tampere in three co-funded research projects. Other research cooperation partners are, among others, the Universities of Joensuu, Jyväskylä, Kuopio and Turku as well as other departments of the University of Helsinki. The Department also collaborates with 13 foreign research institutes and 11 foreign companies within research and development projects funded by the European Commission. The Department received partial funding from about 40 national industrial research partners in 1999.
The Department continued collaboration with the State University of Petrozavodsk. The jointly organised Annual Finnish Data Processing Week took place in Petrozavodsk for the third time as a two-day scientific seminar with presentations from both universities.