[ie-announce] Call for participation Informatics Europe

[carlo.ghezzi at informatics-europe.org]

Dear colleague, 

I am writing this message as President of Informatics Europe (IE) for the term 2012-2014. I would like to take some of your time to give you a brief account of the organization and its initiatives. Informatics Europe (IE) is the Research and Education Organization of Computer Science and IT Departments in Europe. It was created because of the crucial need for an organization that would enable all of us in Europe, facing similar problems, to have a common voice for the discipline. Its members are not individuals but institutions: CS/informatics/IT departments of universities, as well as academic and industrial research labs. IE membership extends all across Europe: there are currently 61 academic members and 4 from industry (Google, Intel, Microsoft Research, and Springer Verlag). This is a good start, but the association's strength directly depends on the number of members.  

IE's Web site (http://www.informatics-europe.org) is the organization's gateway. I kindly urge you to spend some time browsing through the information collected there to get your own view of the organization, its mission, and its services to the members. I am sure you will be surprised by what has been achieved over the past few years and even more so by the potential for future growth. 

If your institution is already a member of IE, please consider this message as a call for participation and active involvement. Being part of IE gives you a real chance of contributing to the community effort on establishing shared policies regarding informatics. Don't hesitate to get in touch with me or any member of the Executive Board to propose initiatives, recommend actions, and offer contributions.  

If your institution is not a member yet, this message is a warm invitation to consider joining. Your participation would be of utmost strategic importance because it will strengthen the position and the authoritativeness of the CS European community. It is really important that as many universities and labs as possible join so that IE can represent the entire community and make a difference. What the association can do depends on how many members it has. The IE Web site provides all the information you need to join. The IE Board would really like to hear from you, also about possible concerns you might have. 

Last, I would like to single out a few IE initiatives, out of the several we are especially proud of.  

Evaluation is becoming a very hot issue. Research and education institutions are increasingly asked to participate in evaluation exercises, both within their host organizations, nationally, and internationally. IE can voice an authoritative opinion to represent CS/informatics/IT departments. A first milestone in this direction is the IE report on how to evaluate Informatics research, which was published in Communication of the ACM (April 2009). This document is already exerting its influence on various national evaluation systems. More initiatives on evaluation are in progress; others need volunteers' efforts to move on. From 2012 IE will have in its operational phase the Department Evaluation[1] initiative offering assessment of research quality in CS/informatics/IT departments. 

Another initiative is the annual European Computer Science Summit[2], which has become the reference European forum for the debate of timely strategic issues of research, education and policy in Informatics. In 2012 the 8th ECSS will take place in Barcelona from 19-21 of November to unite again department heads, deans, research laboratory directors, professors and other opinion leaders in informatics throughout Europe. The association also organizes the Informatics Europe Curriculum Award[3] that recognizes outstanding educational initiatives in different areas of Informatics. It has recently made available to the community an extensive archive of European Research & Education Institutions[4] and a specialized forum for the advertisement of job opportunities in the field through the Informatics Jobs Service[5].  

I am very proud to act as President of a vibrant organization like IE and I am especially excited by the potential of growth I clearly envision for the coming years. You can help make this vision a reality! 

I look forward to hearing from you. Please feel free contact me, any member of the Board, or our Secretary-General Dr. Cristina Pereira (cristina.pereira at informatics-europe.org) for any issues concerning IE. 

With my best regards, 

Prof. Carlo Ghezzi (President, Informatics Europe)

Links:
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[1] http://www.informatics-europe.org/services/department-evaluation.html
[2] http://www.informatics-europe.org/ecss.html
[3] http://www.informatics-europe.org/services/curriculum-award.html
[4] http://www.informatics-europe.org/services/research-education-directory.html
[5] http://www.informatics-europe.org/services/informatics-jobs-service.html
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