Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LogiCS_at_TUWien (Logics for Computer Science Program at TU Wien)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-06-01 al 2024-05-31
Logics for Computer Science (LogiCS@TUWien) offers an international and globally leading program that is characterised by a unique combination of those disciplines where logical methods have the largest impact on applied computer science. The LogiCS@TUWien doctoral school trains 20 research fellows in areas that are in high demand by the global society and industry, such as: today's rapidly developing AI, large AI language models, security and cyber systems, program verification, etc. These areas of computer science put major emphasis on the goal of making computer systems smart and reliable.
Doctoral fellows receive education and are trained in scientific work within a new advanced educational structured program with mandatory elements of interdisciplinarity, transferable skills, international research stays, double supervision with regular participation and assistance of additional experts from TU Wien as well as other institutions. The ability to address new challenging problems, a holistic view and the large cooperation network built by the fellows during their training will shape the career development of outstanding postdocs, future faculty members and visionary leaders in industry.
LogiCS@TUWien aims to institutionalise high-quality doctoral training in logic in computer science at TU Wien as a logic-hotspot in Austria and Europe. Vienna, with its traditions and strong schools in logic, where ICT is one of the largest economic areas of the Vienna region, as well as the attractiveness of the world-famous city known for its spectacular quality of life, attracts strong European and Non-European students. LogiCS@TUWien, therefore, increases Austria’s and Europe’s attractiveness as a leading destination for research and innovation in logic-related areas, contributing to Europe’s competitiveness for addressing key challenges of future computer and software systems.
Doctoral fellows receive education and are trained in scientific work within a new advanced educational structured program with mandatory elements of interdisciplinarity, transferable skills, international research stays, double supervision with regular participation and assistance of additional experts from TU Wien as well as other institutions. The ability to address new challenging problems, a holistic view and the large cooperation network built by the fellows during their training will shape the career development of outstanding postdocs, future faculty members and visionary leaders in industry.
LogiCS@TUWien aims to institutionalise high-quality doctoral training in logic in computer science at TU Wien as a logic-hotspot in Austria and Europe. Vienna, with its traditions and strong schools in logic, where ICT is one of the largest economic areas of the Vienna region, as well as the attractiveness of the world-famous city known for its spectacular quality of life, attracts strong European and Non-European students. LogiCS@TUWien, therefore, increases Austria’s and Europe’s attractiveness as a leading destination for research and innovation in logic-related areas, contributing to Europe’s competitiveness for addressing key challenges of future computer and software systems.
The main goal of the LogiCS@TUWien school is to train 20 researchers in the field of logic in computer science. In three consecutive calls that already started in October 2021 before the school began in June 2022, we recruited 20 gifted fellows from 12 different countries (6 of which are female). A large number of independent experts as well as the necessary bodies of TU Wien participated in the recruitment procedure and the processing of 137 eligible applications. Advertising for calls was carried out very widely and on an international level; a video presentation of the programme and the supervisors was broadcasted via YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and private distribution of the call to cooperating partners was used as well. The first four researchers started their training on July 1, 2022, followed by others, with the last one starting in January 2023. The fellows began by pursuing individual training with their supervisors, and then continued in various group training activities for all recruited researchers from September 2022 onwards.
As a result of the training over two years, 19 students have already successfully passed their Proficiency Evaluation Exam—an important milestone in which they highlight the work done so far and specific plans for the following academic years—and created a personal career development plan. The fellows have already attended 49 of the elective courses in total aimed at deepening their knowledge for working on the dissertation. They received further in-depth education by participating in 12 international summer schools as well as attending 78 other scientific events. Our fellows gave 49 talks at renowned scientific events, and additionally 16 poster presentations. The DK LogiCS@TUWien celebrated two best paper awards, two best poster awards, a 3rd place in the international Student Research Competition, as well as 15 additional stipends and grants received by our students. 13 students participated in the reviewing of scientific papers. 13 fellows voluntarily participated in teaching 32 courses, and 2 fellows are supervising two master students. 5 students visited several well-known European universities and a famous Japanese institution (TU Aachen, TU Dresden, University of A Coruña, Umeå University, National Institute of Informatics Japan), one student received three and half months of industry experience at Apple. Overall, the researchers of the LogiCS@TUWien school published 57 papers in renowned conferences and journals. The first Industry Day took place on January 2024 dedicated to introducing the researchers to representatives of the industry (Siemens, Bosch, and the Director of the I2C Innovation Center TU Wien) and establishing contacts.
These achievements were detailed in several reports: two reports on the Dissemination Activities for Calls 1-3, two Ethics Reports for Calls 1-3, two reports with Links to the Euraxess website where Calls 1-3 were published, Progress Report and the first Report on Training & Career Development.
As a result of the training over two years, 19 students have already successfully passed their Proficiency Evaluation Exam—an important milestone in which they highlight the work done so far and specific plans for the following academic years—and created a personal career development plan. The fellows have already attended 49 of the elective courses in total aimed at deepening their knowledge for working on the dissertation. They received further in-depth education by participating in 12 international summer schools as well as attending 78 other scientific events. Our fellows gave 49 talks at renowned scientific events, and additionally 16 poster presentations. The DK LogiCS@TUWien celebrated two best paper awards, two best poster awards, a 3rd place in the international Student Research Competition, as well as 15 additional stipends and grants received by our students. 13 students participated in the reviewing of scientific papers. 13 fellows voluntarily participated in teaching 32 courses, and 2 fellows are supervising two master students. 5 students visited several well-known European universities and a famous Japanese institution (TU Aachen, TU Dresden, University of A Coruña, Umeå University, National Institute of Informatics Japan), one student received three and half months of industry experience at Apple. Overall, the researchers of the LogiCS@TUWien school published 57 papers in renowned conferences and journals. The first Industry Day took place on January 2024 dedicated to introducing the researchers to representatives of the industry (Siemens, Bosch, and the Director of the I2C Innovation Center TU Wien) and establishing contacts.
These achievements were detailed in several reports: two reports on the Dissemination Activities for Calls 1-3, two Ethics Reports for Calls 1-3, two reports with Links to the Euraxess website where Calls 1-3 were published, Progress Report and the first Report on Training & Career Development.
The project has already led to tangible improvements of the state of the art in several scientific areas that are fundamental to the school as well as of great importance to the global scientific community and industry. These have been published at leading conferences and journals in the field, such as: European Conference on Logics in Artificial Intelligence (JELIA), International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P), International Conference on Engineering Applications of Neural Networks (EANN), ACM/SIGAPP Symposium On Applied Computing (SAC 2024), International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC), Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS), Journal of Logic and Computation, and many more. The expected results of the project include not only a further continuation of these successful scientific endeavors, but also the completion of training of 20 experts who can then contribute to various aspects of society - on scientific as well as entrepreneurial levels.