HIIT Update 1/2005

Headlines in this issue:

- FOREWORD
- HIIT STRATEGY PROCESS
- HIIT RETREAT: Roadmap Towards 2009
- NEW PROJECTS AND GRANTS
- HIIT RECEIVES A DONATION FROM THE TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY OF FINLAND FUND
- ALVIS-REVIEW
- DRAMA-PROJECT SEMINAR
- MEETING OF THE INDUSTRIAL ADVISORY BOARD
- HIIT CO-SPONSORS COMPUTER LAW CONFERENCE
- VISITORS AT HIIT
- SENIOR PERSONNEL NEWS
- FUTURE EVENTS

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FOREWORD

The Finnish science and innovation policy has been hailed as extremely successful, facilitating the rapid turnover of Finland from near-bankruptcy in 1992 to one of world's most competitive economies in the recent years. Its prime features - close co-operation between strategically significant industries and universities, expansion of free university-level education especially in post-graduate level, flexible yet focused national research programmes - have also fueled the development of HIIT.

Still, during the last half a year these policies have been under considerable public scrutiny and criticism. It has been questioned whether they as such are sufficient to maintain competitiveness in a global, innovation-driven economy dominated by a small number of top players with global outreach. Facing turbulent and hypercompetitive markets, companies' ability to fund long-term research seems to have diminished, leaving a bigger share of the responsibility of its funding to public sector. At the other end of the innovation pipeline, universities are charged with expanding responsibility to facilitate the industrial and societal uptake of research results - a duty that has also been formalised in the governing law of universities in Finland.

Several means intended to restore and enhance further the competitiveness and dynamism of the Finnish innovation system have been proposed. In the area of industrially relevant scientific research, a consensus seems has been reached that in key research areas Finland needs multidisciplinary research units that have the intellectual and organisational capability to define, launch and execute research activities in international research networks, aiming at highest scientific quality and industrial impact. Just how these should be set up, organised, and funded is still being discussed.

These important developments form the backdrop of the discussion of HIIT's future mission and strategy that has been ongoing since early 2004. An important milestone in this process was reached in April, 2005, when the Board of HIIT made several decisions on the future of HIIT. In particular, the Board decided that the present two units will be merged after a transition period of three years. As suggested by HIIT's Scientific Advisory Board in their meeting in October 2004, steps to homogenise the research programs, operations, funding, and administrative processes of the present units will commence immediately on the basis of a joint mission of the role of HIIT in the future. The recent HIIT Retreat meeting, also reported in this issue of HIIT Update, was an important step along the roadmap towards this future.

With this, HIIT seems to be in an extremely attractive position to make a contribution to defining and implementing the new science and innovation policies, aiming to secure the continuing role of Finnish research as a driver of progress and competitiveness in the future.

Helsinki 31 May 2005

Martti Mäntylä
Director of Research, Professor

Päivi Saarinen
Planning Officer

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HIIT STRATEGY PROCESS

HIIT was originally founded by agreement of the UH and the HUT for five years (with one-year extensions) from 1 August 1999 to 31 July 2004. As the original period run to end during 2004, the HIIT board launched an extensive strategy process in February 2004, aiming at defining HIIT's overall strategy for a next 5-year period from 1 August 2005. In June 2004, the Board accepted a baseline strategy document focusing in the institutional form and external interface of HIIT. HIIT's mission and the scope of its research were discussed in the meetings of the Industrial Advisory Board in September and the Board in October. HIIT's future was also a major topic of the Scientific Advisory Board meeting in November 2004.

The final decisions were reached in April 2005 when it was decided that the two units of the research center would be joined from January 1, 2009. During the intervening three years 2006-2008, the research programs, practical operations, formal position, and funding structure of the two units will be homogenized. Moreover, the research groups of the present ARU will be moved from the Ruoholahti offices to HUT and UH campuses, aiming at more intensive interaction between HIIT and the parent universities. The directors of the two units were charged with the mission of defining a practical roadmap towards this goal.

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HIIT RETREAT: Roadmap Towards 2009

The annual HIIT Retreat event was held on May 18-20 in Haukilammen toimintakeskus. The prime objective of the retreat was discuss and plan the overall HIIT Roadmap 2009, in light of the recent decisions of the HIIT Board on HIIT's strategy. The discussion focused especially on the research themes to be addressed in 2006-2008 and how the objectives of the strategy could in practice be reached by 2009. The desired outcome was a shared understanding of the roadmap and the next steps of its implementation.

A consensus was reached in the meeting on some of the first steps that can be taken before the end of 2005. The research programmes of the two units will be merged, so that from 2006 onwards there will be no separate programmes for ARU or BRU. A transparent process for selecting and implementing research programmes will be defined. Moreover, HIIT will prepare and launch initiatives as needed to maintain its position in the changing Finnish academic research scene.

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NEW PROJECTS AND GRANTS

FUEGO CORE 2005/2007: FUTURE MOBILE MIDDLEWARE

The National Technology Agency TEKES awarded first-year funding for the project Fuego Core 2005/2007: Future Mobile Middleware. The objective of the project is to develop middleware components for reconfigurable systems that enable adaptive, context-aware and personalized applications. The project is led by Professor Kimmo Raatikainen of University of Helsinki and HIIT. For more information please contact him at kimmo.raatikainen(a)hiit.fi or peek into http://www.hiit.fi/fc.

MANAGING PRIVACY AND TRUST IN P2P (MUPPET)

The National Technology Agency TEKES awarded second-year funding for the project Managing Privacy and Trust in P2P (MUPPET). Peer-to-Peer technologies can offer radically new possibilities for communication, be it broadcast, group or person-to-person communication. At the same time, the distributed nature of this technology presents us with many trust and privacy challenges. The Muppet project studies these problems mainly from technical and economic perspectives, with cooperative studies in usability. Muppet is a 3-year research project from 1.1.2004 to 31.12.2006 with a combined effort of 11 man-years. For more information please contact Professor Martti Mäntylä or peek into https://isoveli.hiit.fi/Muppet/index.php.

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HIIT RECEIVES A DONATION FROM THE TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY OF FINLAND FUND

The Board of the Technology Industry of Finland Fund has decided to grant Helsinki University of Technology a donation of 550 000 euros, intended as the basic funding for a new Principal Scientist position in HIIT in the area of Network Society research. The position will be filled for five years from 1.8.2005 to 31.7.2010. The generous grant will strengthen considerably HIIT's capability to define, launch and execute research initiatives in information society research area, and aim at highest international outreach and impact.

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ALVIS-REVIEW

The EU 6th Framework programme IST project ALVIS (Superpeer Semantic Search Engine) held its first review on March 4th, 2005. The review was held in HIIT premises in Helsinki by the Coordinator HIIT. The review board consisted of the project officer Dr Werner Janusch and reviewers Daniele Montanari from Bologna, Italy and Dr Rudi Studer from Institut AIFB at Universitaet Karlsruhe (TH) in Germany.

The review started already at the end of the year 2004 by a virtual preliminary review of the deliverables and documentation of the project. The review meeting itself lasted the whole day, during which the results of the first year and the plans for the future were carefully and critically examined. The whole project management committee were present to clarify any questions that the reviewers might have. The Chinese partner Tsinghua University also sent four delegates to the meeting.

ALVIS received generally good remarks for its work done so far and was allowed to continue the work. Especially the P2P and linguistic processing part of the work received good reviews. The diversity of languages aimed for (Chinese, English and Slovenian) was seen as an important aspect of the project.

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DRAMA PROJECT SEMINAR 31.3.2005: "SCENES OF A RESEARCH"

The Academy of Finland funded research project Drama - Scenario Methods for UCPCD combines researchers from HIIT and the Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia to study how methods of interactive theatre can be combined with user centered product concept design. The project studies especially people over 50 who plan to retire or move to a half-pension. Various occupational groups studied include teachers, church employees, police men, and nurses.

The project held a public seminar on March 31, 2005 in Teatterikulma, Helsinki, presenting the current status of the project through theater performances for an audience of some 70 people. In particular, the Forum theater performance Satumaa was played in the seminar. This performance was developed on the basis of the user research conducted during the first year of the project, and has been presented 11 times in different work communities during 2004. Satumaa visualizes the difficulties related to retiring through the life of Satu, a dedicated office worker torn between plans for early retirement and work life complexities. Also a re-adaptation of the Amazing Race tv-sequel that presented the opportunities and difficulties of the multidisciplinary co-operation was presented.

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MEETING OF THE INDUSTRIAL ADVISORY BOARD HELD

The Industrial Advisory Board meeting was held on January 12, 2005. The main topic of the meeting was to discuss HIIT's research strategy. The deans of the Computer Science Departments of the parent universities, Professor Jukka Paakki (University of Helsinki) and Professor Olli Simula (Helsinki University of Technology) gave brief position presentations on their departments' views on HIIT's mission, which was followed by a lively discussion. Also the directors of the two units presented their suggestions on how the the HIIT-industry co-operation should be organised in the future.

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HIIT CO-SPONSORS COMPUTER LAW CONFERENCE

HIIT has agreed to act as a non-financial co-sponsor of the 2005 Computer Law Association European Conference to be held on October 27-28, 2005 in Stockholm, Sweden. The conference will showcase two days of presentations, featuring over 60 speakers from around the world. The subjects to be covered include the legal aspects of Telecommunications, Information Security Governance, e-commerce (including electronic signatures and the regulation of encryption technology), software licensing agreements, patent and trademark protection of know-how and technology, and "technology-for-everyone" panels on RFID, VOIP and Internet security. Recent developments in Europe and the United States in computer law and telecommunications will be covered by leading experts, regulators and judges. Attendees will include attorneys, EU and American regulators, and general counsel of high-tech and telecom companies, as well as software and hardware suppliers who daily face the legal issues that arise in IT sales and distribution, e-commerce and the protection of intellectual property. The agenda of the event is available at www.clastockholm.com.

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VISITORS AT HIIT

VISITORS FROM THE TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY

On March 1-8, HIIT hosted four visitors from the Tsinghua University: professors Lizhu Zhou, Maosun Sun and Qiang Zhou, and Mr. Qi Guo. The visit was related to the next generation information retrieval work done by the Cosco group in the projects SIB, Alvis and Prose.

On April 30, Mr. Guo Hang from Tsinghua University returned back to China after a successful 6 month visit to HIIT, hosted by the SIB project of Cosco. A return visit by one of the Cosco members is planned for Fall 2005.

CHRISTIANO DI FLORA VISITS HIIT

PhD Cristiano di Flora from Federico II University of Naples Visited HIIT from April 13 till May 11, 2005. His research interests focus on the discovery and delivery of mobile computing services. Cristiano has been collaborating with the group of Professor Kimmo Raatikainen since September 2003.

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SENIOR PERSONNEL NEWS

HIIT researcher Perttu Virtanen defended successfully his doctoral thesis on February 11 at Lappeenranta University of Technology in the field of information law. Professor Mads Bryde Andersen from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark was the opponent and the custos was Professor Jukka Kemppinen from Lappeenranta University of Technology and HIIT. The thesis was titled "Database rights in safe European home. The path to more rigorous protection of information". The work reported in the thesis was executed in the Digital Economy Core project of HIIT.

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FUTURE EVENTS

15 June 2005 at 14:00: HIIT Board meeting, HTC Helsinki

16-17 June 2005: Workshop on Context Awareness for Proactive Systems (CAPS 2005), Helsinki. For ore information, please see http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/hiit_bru/conferences/caps2005/.