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Department of Informatics

About Us

Consistently ranked as one of Norway´s best computer science departments, The Department of Informatics at UiB endeavours to provide quality education and internationally recognized research.

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The Department of Informatics at the University of Bergen is rated as one of the top ICT institutes in Norway by the Research Council of Norway, and was rated as the best institute in 2012. Most recently, the “Joint Master´s Programme in Software Engineering,” in cooperation with Bergen University College, is the country´s highest ranking masters degrees in scientific and technical subjects according to Studiebarometeret.

The department´s mission is to maintain an internationally recognized level of excellence in both research and teaching. The department fosters a diverse academic environment where it´s students and faculty are given the tools and support necessary to be the best they can be. Through outreach activities, it plays a leading role in integrating quality Computer Science education throughout various communities in Norway.

The department offers several data-oriented Bachelor programs, taught solely in Norwegian, and two Masters programs, the Master´s Programme in Informatics and the Joint Master's Program in Software Engineering, which are both taught exclusively in English. The deadline to apply for all study programs is April 15.

There are 8 research groups in the Department of Informatics: Algorithms, Bioinformatics, Didactics, Machine Learning, Optimization, Programming Theory, Reliable Communication, and Visualization. There is also one Research Center associated with the department, The Computational Biology Unit. Each group supervises masters student projects and offers diverse and exciting PhD and research positions. More information about these opportunities can be found on each group´s webpage.

Algorithms

Algorithms research aims to develop efficient algorithms that increase the speed of computer software. It focuses on computationally difficult, so-called NP-complete, problems and attempts to find practical algorithms for these.

Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics develops applications for biotech issues in close collaboration with molecular biologists, biologists and researchers in medicine. Techniques from algorithm theory, artificial intelligence, database theory and statistics are used in Bioinformatics.

Didactics

The research group in Didactics conducts research and develops methods for effective learning within informatics.

Machine Learning

The research group in Machine Learning conducts research in fundamental principles and algorithms for machine learning, including Bayesian networks, deep learning, and artificial intelligence.

Optimization

Optimization is used in financial and technical contexts to determine the value of unknown variables, so that a specific criteria can be minimized or maximized.

Programming Theory 

Programming Theory is the basis of software development. The field ranges from purely theoretical to the development of new programming techniques for supercomputers.

Reliable Communication

Reliable Communication develops secure wireless communication. Using coding theory to protect digital transmissions against loss from noise (e.g. atmospheric disturbances) and to reduce transmission time by packing data efficiently. Cryptography is used to protect information from disclosure and unauthorized modifications.

Visualization

Visualization allows people to explore and analyze complex data using 3D technology, for example, to present data from medical scans or seismic surveys.

The Computational Biology Unit (CBU)

The Computational Biology Unit (CBU) aims to conduct competitive bioinformatics research and to expand the interface between bioinformatics and experimental biological and biomedical research. The six research groups explained above are currently associated with CBU with projects that include sequence and structure analysis, molecular evolution, genome annotation and genomics data analysis. CBU also provides services and contributes to bioinformatics education primarily through training courses.