Graduate schools
The main task of a Ph.D. student is to do research, leading to a dissertation. Since everything has to be learned, the Ph.D. student is supposed to get training in doing research, and also to get additional education in his/her research area. The graduate education preparing for a Ph.D. is provided by the Dutch research schools. These research schools are institutions in which several universities participate. Their aim is to coordinate research activities in a specific area and to organize training programmes for Ph.D. students in that area.
The Department of Computer Science of the Vrije Universiteit participates in four research schools:
ASCI
The research in the Advanced School for Computing and Imaging (ASCI) focuses on two main themes:
Computer Systems: methods and techniques for the design and implementation of advanced computer systems, especially parallel, distributed, embedded and real-time systems.
Imaging Systems: methods and techniques for the analysis and synthesis of images.
These two areas frequently overlap, creating areas of fruitful research. For example, advanced imaging systems often need massive parallel computing systems due to the amount of data to be processed. Similarly, when imaging, distributedsystems and real-time systems are combined, we get multimedia, another increasingly important area.
Website: www.asci.tudelft.nl
IPA
It is the principal goal of the Institute for Programming research and Algorithmics (IPA) to educate researchers in the field of programming research and algorithmics; this research area comprises:
the study and development of formalisms, methods and techniques to design, analyze, and construct software systems and components
Website: www.win.tue.nl/ipa
OZSL
The aim of the Dutch Graduate School in Logic (OZSL, for Onderzoeksschool Logika) is to guide the development of logic research, as a core part of an emerging new science of information processing. More in particular, the school is active in the research areas of:
logic in computer science
logic and artificial intelligence
logic, philosophy and linguistics
The OZSL also encourages the development of new areas where logic, viewed as the science of the formal aspects of information processing, could play an important role.
Website: www.ozsl.uu.nl
SIKS
The scientific mission of the Dutch Research School for Information and Knowledge systems (SIKS) is to perform high-level fundamental and applied research in the field of information and knowledge systems, from the perspectives of the following scientific areas:
database systems
information systems
knowledge engineering
software engineering
theoretical computer science and applied logic
Website: www.cs.uu.nl/siks
