International Evaluation of Finnish Computer Science

6.4. The societal impact of the Unit’s activities (max. 1 page)

Describe here how the Unit’s research activities and cooperation with other actors in society have promoted the activities of other societal actors, e.g. industry of SMEs.
HIIT’s societal impact plays out in two main theatres: co-operation with industry and influencing the research and information society policies.
HIIT’s research is oriented toward three industrial clusters: the ICT cluster, the (digital) media cluster, and the life sciences cluster. In each cluster, the institute has developed close and durable relationships with the key Finnish companies and consortia such as Nokia, Ericsson, TeliaSonera, Elisa, and Dimes ry.; SanomaWSOY, Alma Media, Yleisradio, and Forum Virium Helsinki; Cyberell Ltd, GeneOS Ltd, and Jurilab Ltd. Especially with Nokia and Ericsson, the co-operation is almost symbiotic, reinforced by shared personnel. Through EU programmes, it has also developed links to many leading European companies in these fields such as Siemens, DoCoMo, France Telecom, Alcatel, BT, Telefonica, and many others. HIIT has also contributed directly to industry through several new ventures originating from HIIT’s research (e.g., Ekahau, Ltd. and Jaiku.com).
More indirectly, HIIT’s industrial impact through releasing publicly available software has also been substantial. We have produced software such as Context, a system for running data gathering and building contextual applications on Nokia Series 60 Phones; HaploRec, population-based haplotyping of genotype data; HPM (Haplotype Pattern Mining) and TreeDT, gene mapping software; Icasso, a software package for evaluating the reliability of results given by independent component analysis. HIIT researchers have also obtained one patent for a method for gene mapping using chromosome and phenotype data and eight patents are pending in the fields of genetics and telecommunications.
HIIT has reached the profile of a vocal and visible participant in the public debate related to various important themes of information society, especially the discussion on immaterial rights, regulation, security, privacy and trust, and the basic infrastructure of the information society. It has also contributed to policy development by co-operating with the various branches of public administration. HIIT’s research has also figured in newspapers and periodicals as well as on TV and radio and through lectures to a general audience (e.g., at Heureka, the Finnish science centre).

6.5. Assess the academic and societal need for doctoral training within the Unit’s research fields and the Unit’s role in doctoral training (max. 1 page).

The “market” of young doctors in the areas of HIIT’s research consists of several segments:

1. 
   Finnish universities
   
2. 
   Other Finnish research institutes
   
3. 
   Finnish companies, especially Nokia and its research centre
   
4. 
   Finnish public administration and third sector
   
5. 
   Foreign companies and universities
   

Our experience is that all doctors find employment very easily in one of these segments. Roughly half of them are employed in universities; perhaps one in five finds foreign employment (e.g., post-doc position), and only the remaining 30% are available to other segments. Our perception is that this fails to satisfy the demand especially in industry. Especially “multi-disciplinary” doctors (doctors who have experience of working in multidisciplinary teams) have continuous high demand.

Taking into account that the demand also in universities is likely to remain healthy if the present plans to strengthen the post-doc positions in universities are implemented, there is a clear need to increase doctoral training in the fields of HIIT.
To this end, HIIT applies several strategies. Most of its researchers are also post-graduate students. The progress of their studies is closely monitored, and reasonable efforts are spent to provide them good conditions for doctoral research. HIIT also participates in doctoral schools related to the themes of its research programmes and has also made initiatives in this regard. With the exception of the Future Internet programme, all HIIT’s research programmes are affiliated with doctoral programs with matching themes.

6.6. Assess the research infrastructure available (max 1 page)

Describe the use and availability of research infrastructures, e.g. computer resources, research equipment, both from the parent organisation and outside.
The key elements of the research infrastructure for HIIT’s work consist of the following elements: general scientific infrastructure (literature, networks, …); computational infrastructure needed for experimental ICT research; access to interesting data; and access to interesting users and user communities.
As to the general research infrastructure, HIIT’s present situation is reasonably good. For instance, HIIT-BRU’s research groups located in the new Exactum building at the Kumpula campus of UH can utilize the excellent administrative and computing infrastructure of the Department of Computer Science.
In providing computational infrastructure for experimental ICT research, the bottlenecks are not severe and can be eliminated relatively easily. For instance, intensive field studies in mobile computing seem to consume mobile phones like potato chips; fortunately, they are not very expensive, and projects mostly can afford them (with the exception of projects funded by the Academy of Finland, that must make do with what they can borrow from others). Networking research requires HIIT to essentially duplicate its basic networking infrastructure and use commercial services free from the restrictions of the FUNET network. Access to the PlanetLab test platform has proved to be critical.
As to the third item (access to data), HIIT is also in a good position due to its close links to industry and other research institutes “owning” the data. To maintain this position is a vital part of HIIT’s partnership strategy.
The fourth item (access to users) is tricky. On its own, HIIT can conduct experimental research only on small sets of users (or sometimes, students). Unfortunately, it is thinkable that some phenomena of potential scientific interest e.g. in social computing will become visible only if instead of tens, 100’s, 1000’s, or perhaps millions of users can be studied. This is a challenge that HIIT cannot solve itself, but that requires partnerships with companies and other actors. From HIIT’s viewpoint, this is the key issue that must be addressed by the “living labs” and other initiatives aiming to create large-scale experimental platforms. HIIT has followed closely the related activities both in Finland and in Europe.