New HIIT research programs selected

The HIIT Board decided in their meeting on June 1st to launch the following new HIIT research programs in August:

• Foundations of Computational Health, program director Juho Rousu
• Computational Inference, program director Samuel Kaski
• Building Trust in Secure Computing Systems, program director Valtteri Niemi
• Augmented Research, program director Giulio Jacucci

The operating term for the first 3 programs is 5 years, 1.8.2016-31.7.2021, and they were selected from the candidates in the ongoing call for new Academy Centers of Excellence, following the process described earlier in here. The fourth program, which continues the activities of the ongoing HIIT-Wide Focus Area, will run for 2 years. Each of the four programs has participating professors from both Aalto University and University of Helsinki, and is strongly committed to support the joint “Helsinki ICT” mission of HIIT.

The current HIIT programs can run until the end of 2016, but cannot make new commitments going beyond this deadline. Individual activities started earlier (ongoing research projects or HIIT researcher positions) can continue beyond this, until their current operational term.

Starting August 1st, HIIT will also have a new Steering Group consisting of the directors of the new programs. More information about the “new HIIT” and the new research programs will be given later in a kick-off event to be organized after the summer holidays.