DDCRD 2013 - Pre-Summit Workshop for Deans, Department Chairs and Research Directors

Pre-Summit Workshop for Deans, Department Chairs and Research Directors
Positioning of computer science within the university: hardcore or interdisciplinary: how to reach out?
October 07, 2013 - Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Workshop Chair: Prof. Mehdi Jazayeri, Faculty of Informatics, University of Lugano
With the expansion of informatics and its ever-growing pervasiveness in other disciplines and society in general, department chairs at informatics groups face ever-increasing challenges. The goal of the workshop is to provide a networking opportunity for department chairs, old and new, to share experiences, common challenges, and best practices. It provides a forum for strengthening your leadership and management competencies by exchanging best practices and by building relationships among department heads at European Informatics research institutions. This year's meeting focuses on an issue that is raised due to the amazing success of computer science: how to position computer science within the university, how to collaborate with other departments, how to identify interdisciplinary collaborations that benefit all parties, how to deal with the explosion of X-informatics and computational-X. There are many related issues: should computer science offer "service" courses or should we help other departments create their own courses? Is doing interdisciplinary research in conflict with doing hard-core computer science? Which disciplines are more amenable to collaboration with computer science? Should young researchers concentrate on computer science or collaboration with other disciplines?
The workshop will be a mixture of discussions/knowledge sharing/exchange of practical guidelines in smaller groups. Please bring the issues you are facing and approaches you have found to work. Both new and experienced department heads are invited for an exchange of best practices, new ideas and common challenges. Benefits for participants include:
Learning best practices from heads of European Informatics departments and research labs
Offering a networking platform for heads of European Informatics departments and research labs
Inspiration for improving department processes
Speakers:
Anthony Finkelstein, University College London, UK
Mehdi Jazayeri, University of Lugano, Switzerland
Tommi Mikkonen, Tampere University of Technology
Wilhelm Schäfer, Paderborn University (tbc)