Vienna PhD School of Informatics - Fakultät für Informatik, TU Wien

Vienna PhD School of Informatics
Vienna University of Technology
Hannes Werthner

Objectives
• To increase quality and quantity of excellent young researchers
• To position VUT in the international community at a high level
• “Broad”: entire faculty of Informatics, not related to one single research
topic
• Also to extend international co-operations beyond concrete projects
• The goal is to develop scientists, where each participant should
• both have scholarship (breadth) as well as contribute to the development of
science (depth)
• gain new scientific insights and present them comprehensively
• gain the ability to solve complex scientific problems in both fundamental and
applied research at a high international level
• PhD students are qualified
• to perform innovative research alone or in a team and
• to assume (scientific) management and leadership positions

Further “Facts”
• The curriculum covers computer science and business informatics
• Three years full-time program with scholarship
• All courses are in English
• International co-operations with other Universities
• Co-operations with industry
• Funded by City of Vienna, Faculty of Informatics
• International participation: ~85 % come from abroad
• Female participation: ~40%
• Admission: based on a competitive examination of the applications
(obtained degrees, master’s work done, letters of recommendation,
interview)
• This year 250 applications, 21 candidates selected (from Austria,
Brazil, Kenya, Czech Republic, India, Pakistan, Poland, Russia,
Serbia, Slovakia, Sweden, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Ukraine, USA)

•PhD courses consist of
Curricula
• Fundamental courses (15 credits, i.e., 5 courses): Philosophy
of Science, Research Methodology, Research and Career
Planning, PhD seminar /”conference”, Innovation
• Area courses (24-27 credits, i.e., 8 area courses): 7 from the
primary and 1 from another area (candidates choose)
◦ Computational Intelligence
◦ Distributed Systems
◦ Media Informatics and Visual Computing
◦ Computer Engineering
◦ Business Informatics
• Two courses per area by visiting scientists
• Students may also take “outside” courses (e.g., Summer
schools or at other Universities)
• Courses in the first two years – most in first year

Curricula
Final Exam /
PhD Defence
Conference
Papers
PhD Thesis
3 rd Year
Qualifying
Exam
Comprehensive
Exam
PhD Courses
Fundamental
Courses
5 courses
Area Courses
5 PhD courses
3 Master courses
1 st Year 2 nd Year
Admission

• Area Courses
Courses in Winter Term
for 1 Year Students
• Foundations of Business Informatics – Prof. Kappel
• Introduction to Media Informatics and Visual Computing – Prof.
Breiteneder
• Advanced Topics in Service-oriented and Cloud Computing – Prof.
Dustdar
• Primary Area Computer Engineering Introduction –
Profs.Schmid/Steininger
• Foundations of Data and Knowledge Systems – Profs.Eiter/Pichler
• Area Specific Master Courses (to be determined by the
student and his/her academic supervisor)
• Other Area Courses
• Model Checking – Prof. Veith
• Shape-from-function methods (Profs.Kropatsch/Landi)
• Courses at IST Austria (Algorithms, Linear Algebra, Formal methods,
Discrete Mathematics and Probability)

• Exams
Exams and Organization
• Comprehensive exam: evaluation of knowledge of the prerequisites – breadth and
depth
• Qualifying exam: essentially PhD proposal
• Final exam (based also on external evaluation of PhD thesis)
• Organization
• Admission is based on a competitive examination of applications (written material
and phone interviews)
• The program is full-time
• Students receive scholarships of 1.000 € / month to cover living costs (incl.
insurance) + 1.000 € / year for travel to scientific events
• Students integrated into research groups (assigned to an advisor), within the first
year
• Structure
• Commission of the PhD school (representatives of research areas)
• Director of the School – Prof. Werthner
• Assistants of the School – Clarissa Schmid, Maria del Carmen Calatrava Moreno
• Pool of external scientists

Exams and Organization (2)
• Schedule
• Until February 2012: Students decide on their primary area
• March 2012: comprehensive exam (2 papers selected from a list of papers –
presentation and in-depth discussion)
• Latest end of April 2012: Decision on advisor
• September 2012: Qualifying exam (PhD Thesis proposal)

Administrative support
• Clarissa Schmid
• Financial support of students (paying scholarships rates, re-funding
travel expenses).
• Contact person for OeAD, Gemeinde Wien and official Austrian
institutions.
• SAP system bookings (e.g. order entry for notebooks).
• Mamen Calatrava
• Academic support of students (answering questions regarding
courses and exams).
• Coordination of courses/lectures (schedules / meetings rooms,
issuing of certificates).
• Coordination of student meetings and exams.

Administrative Issues
• Personal registration of all students at Vienna University of
Technology / Karlsplatz 13, „Studien- und Prüfungsabteilung“
• Open bank account in Austria (inform C.Schmid about bank
details, Vienna address and matriculation number)
• Get TU account
• Health insurance
• Notebooks – status
• PhD School students‘ room -> Paniglgasse 16, 4th floor
• German courses