JOINT ERCIM ACTIONS
ERCIM News No.35 - October 1998

Slovak Consortium joins ERCIM

by Gabriela Andrejkova and Branislav Rovan


The Slovak Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics, SRCIM, consists of four major Slovak R&D institutes active in informatics and mathematics; comprised of three universities and of one research institute from the Academy of Sciences of the Slovak Republic. The university institutions involved are the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at the Comenius University in Bratislava, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, and the Faculty of Science at the Safarik University in Kosice. The institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences is the Mathematical Institute (with its Institute for Informatics) in Bratislava.

By establishing SRCIM from these four partners, it has been possible to create a partner for ERCIM which is strong enough to represent the Slovak R&D community in informatics and mathematics. The final agreement on SRCIM joining ERCIM was signed on the occasion of the ERCIM meetings in Sankt Augustin on 29 May 1998 (see ERCIM News No. 34, page 3).

The SRCIM institutes have been involved, sometimes jointly, in a number of international projects. The EU funded many of these projects. Below we will give a short description of the profile of each SRCIM institute, ordered according to the age of the institute.

Comenius University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics

Founded in 1919, Comenius University is the oldest university in Slovakia. The Faculty of Mathematics and Physics came into existence in 1980 by splitting from the Natural Science Faculty. The faculty consists of 22 departments, 3 institutes, the computer center, and experimental workshops. More than 1500 full-time students and almost 200 PhD students are registered at the faculty. The faculty employs over 300 teachers and researchers. The faculty is divided into three schools: the School of Mathematics, School of Physics and School of Informatics. The School of Mathematics consists of the departments of Algebra and Number Theory, Didactic of Mathematics, Calculus, Geometry, Numerical Mathematics and Optimization, Probability and Mathematical Statistics, Institute of Applied Mathematics. The School of Informatics was established in 1990 after several departments split off the Department of Computer Science that was founded in 1974. At present it consists of the following departments: Department of Computer Graphics and Image Processing, Department of Computer Science, Department of Computer Science Education, Institute of Computer Science.

The research activities of the School of Informatics involve models of computation, complexity, algorithms, parallel and distributed computing, combinatorics, computer graphics, information systems, security, distributed systems, software engineering, and computer science education. The School of Informatics has been involved in co-organizing the international conferences Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS) and Theory and Practice of Informatics (SOFSEM) since 1973.

Slovak University of Technology, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology

The Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava was founded in 1941 and it is the oldest and largest technical university in Slovakia. Information Technology has been added to the name of one of its six faculties, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, in 1994. This faculty consists of 18 departments. About 2800 full-time students and 150 PhD students are registered at the faculty. The faculty employs about 400 teachers and researchers. There are 3 departments in the area of information technology: Department of Computer Science and Technology, Department of Mathematics, and Department of Telecommunications.

The research activities within the information technology area involve formal methods and tools for the design of hardware and software systems, software engineering, artificial inteligence, distributed and parallel systems, telecommunication networks and services, optocommunication systems, cryptosystems, and combinatorics. The Department of Computer Science and Technology has been involved in co-organizing several international conferences, eg, Artificial Intelligence and Control Systems of Robots and most recently Knowledge Based Software Engineering.

Pavol Jozef Safarik University, Kosice, Faculty of Science

The founding of the Pavol Jozef Safarik University in 1959 was an important event in the development of the educational and research activities in the city of Kosice - a continuation of the tradition dating back to 1657 when the first university in Kosice was established. The present University is named after an outstanding personality of the Slovak history, Pavol Jozef Safarik (1795-1861), who was scientist, poet, linguist, etnographer, archaelogist and educator.

Faculty of Science of the P. J. Safarik University was establihed in 1963. During its 35 year history it has become an important institution of higher education and research activities which are realized on the basis of an intensive international collaboration with many relevant institutions all over the world.

The faculty consists of 16 departments and of a computer center. More than 1250 full-time students and almost 80 PhD students are registered at the faculty. The faculty employs over 140 teachers and 40 researchers. The faculty is divided into four schools: the School of Mathematics and Informatics, School of Physics, School of Chemistry and School of Biology and Geography. The School of Mathematics and Informatics consists of three departments: Calculus and Didactics, Geometry and Algebra, and Informatics.

The department of informatics coordinates education and prepares curriculum design and it is responsible for the content and organization of the programme in informatics for one subject Magister’s and Bachelor’s study and for the two subject study in combination with mathematics and physics.

Current research activities of the department are Logical Programming, Formal Languages, Structural Complexity, Neural Network, Information Systems, Logic, Set Theory and Topology.
The Department of Informatics has many international collaborations, for example with Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University (Israel), Charles University in Prague and Czech Academy of Sciences, University of Florence (Italy), Technical University of Berlin.

Mathematical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava

The activity of the Mathematical Institute of Slovak Academy of Sciences is oriented mainly on the basic research in various areas of mathematics and informatics. The main fields the Mathematical Institute deals with are: logic, set theory, real functions theory, algebra, convergence structures and topology, quantuum logic, measure and integration, probability theory and statistics, fuzzy logic, fuzzy mathematics, many-valued logic, number theory, combinatorics, computability, and complexity theory.

Institute for Informatics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences

The Institute for Informatics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences was founded in 1992. Since 1994 it has been a part of the Institute of Mathematics. At present it employs 11 researchers. Since 1994 the Institute has been a part of the Institute of Mathematics at the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

The institute was founded with the goals:

The research activity of the Institute for Informatics is oriented at:

The Institute organizes the Conferences Graph-Theoretic Concepts in Computer Science (WG’98) and coordinates two projects on parallel computing (supported by grants from the Slovak Grant Agency) and the subproject Parallel Numerics of the CEI (Central Europen Initiative) project PACT (Programming Environments, Algorithms, Applications, Compilers and Tools for Parallel Computation).

The Institute also takes part in European Union projects. The Institute is a partner in:

In the recent past the Institute was a partner in: the pilot project ALTEC (Action 1000), Algorithms for Future Technologies (aimed at parallel and didstributed computing and combinatorial optimization) and the PORTRAIT project (COP 94 01862), Parallel Computation of Spectral Portraits of Matrices.

Please contact:

Grabriela Andrejkova - SRCIM, Safarik University
Tel.: 62 211 28, 62 219 26, 62 229 71
E-mail: andrejk@kosice.upjs.sk

Branislav Rovan - SRCIM, Comenius University
Tel: +421 7 65426635
E-mail: rovan@fmph.uniba.sk

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