UPF Fact Sheet: Engineering and Information and Communication Technologies (April 2019)

UPF Fact Sheet

ENGINEERING AND INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES

Teaching

The Polytechnic School initiated its activities in 1999, with the launch of an undergraduate degree in Computer Science at UPF. Since then, the School has grown, offering new programmes in Telematics, Audiovisual Systems, Biomedical Engineering and Mathematical Engineering in Data Science. It also offers several master’s degrees and a PhD programme.

Key figures —— —— —— ——

50% of official master’s students are international (2018-2019) 57% of doctoral students are international (2018-2019) 23% of graduates have studied abroad (2017-2018) Internship agreements with nearly 120 companies, such as HP, Worldline Iberia, Schneider Electric Spain and Accenture

Research

Despite its short history, the Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC) is already recognized for its highquality research output and international impact. From the outset, it has emphasized scientific excellence in all its activities. This is clear in the CVs of the teaching staff. DTIC is leader in both the number of researchers contracted through the Catalan government’s ICREA programme and the number of grants received from the European Research Council (ERC). It is also the department that does the most to make UPF the top Spanish university in terms of ICT R&D funding from European funds (see “Key figures” below).

In 2015, the Department was named a “María de Maeztu” Unit of Excellence, a programme funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness with the aim to accredit public research centres and units in any field in which they demonstrate scientific leadership.

These and other achievements have helped to position DTIC within the top 100 departments of its kind in the world, according to the prestigious Shanghai ranking (see Section 4 on rankings below).

Key figures —— Horizon 2020:[1] €20.8 million / 46 projects —— 12 ERC grants —— 13 Marie Curie actions —— Spanish R&D and Innovation Plan:[2] €3.8 million / 40 projects —— International teaching staff:[3] 39% —— ICREA research professors:[4] 13 —— 1 Maria de Maeztu accreditation (DTIC) —— Theses defended in English: 100% (2017-2018) —— 14 industrial PhD projects funded by the regional government (2013-2018)

Data refer to the 2014-2018 period only. They include individual and consortia projects.

[2] Data refer to the 2014-2017 period.

[3] Data as of January 2017.

[4] The Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) offers permanent tenured positions at Catalan host institutions to top researchers from around the world.

[1]

Research areas DTIC offers well-established modern facilities to enable top-quality research and scientific output. It is currently home to many research groups spanning a wide range of areas in the field of ICT that can be grouped into four broad categories: —— —— —— ——

Computational and Intelligent Systems Multimedia Technologies Networks and Communications Computational Biology and Biomedical Systems

Research groups In the last decade, research in the field of ICT has become increasingly interdisciplinary. DTIC’s research landscape reflects this trend insofar as its research groups increasingly collaborate with each other and with external institutions on both Spanish and European research initiatives.

DTIC’s research groups currently include: —— —— —— —— —— —— —— ——

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rtificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI&ML) Natural Language Processing (TALN) The Ubiquitous Computing Applications Laboratory (UbiCA Lab) Web Science and Social Computing (WSSC) Cognitive Multimedia Technologies (CMTECH) Image Processing Group (IPG) Image Processing for Enhanced Cinematography (IP4EC) Music Technology Group (MTG) . includes: —— Audio Signal Processing Lab (ASP-Lab), —— Music Information Research Lab (MIR-Lab), —— Music and Multimodal Interaction Lab (MMI-Lab) and —— Music and Machine Learning Lab (MML-Lab) Interactive Technologies Group (ITG) Interactive Technologies Distributed for Education (TIDE) Network Technologies and Strategies (NeTS) Wireless Communications (WICOM) Wireless Networking (WN) Information Theory and Coding (ITC) Nonlinear Time Series Analysis Group (NTSA) Biomedical Electronics Research Group (BERG) Sensing in Physiology and Biomedicine (PHYSENSE) Simulation, Imaging and Modelling for Biomedical Systems (SIMBioSys)

Centres DTIC is also home to the Center for Brain and Cognition (CBC), which is made up of the following research groups: —— —— —— —— —— —— ——

Computational Neuroscience (CNS) Language and Comparative Cognition (LCC) Multisensory Research Group (MRG) Speech Acquisition and Perception (SAP) Speech Production and Bilingualism (SPB) Reasoning and Infant Cognition (RICO) Theoretical and Cognitive Neuroscience (TCN)

International agreements

In addition to a highly international community, the DTIC’s international profile extends to its External Advisory Board, which includes members from various outstanding institutions around the world, such as MIT, Purdue, Rice, McGill, Oxford or the Weizmann Institute of Science. The Board is tasked with helping the Department achieve excellence in teaching, research, and socially oriented activities, improve its organizational structures and their operation, and increase its international recognition.

At the undergraduate level, the Polytechnic School is committed to training comprehensively skilled professionals in the field and endowing its students with a passion for research. Global competence is assured by a wide range of courses offered in English, being actually possible to follow a full bachelor degree in English and complemented by a rich choice of mobility opportunities, including internships abroad and international exchanges.

The School has signed international exchange agreements with 22 partner universities in 16 countries. Some of UPF’s main partners in the field of ICT include the following universities: —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— ——

Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Tubingen (Germany) Politecnico de Milano (Italy) Essex (United Kingdom) Grenoble and Bretagne (France) Aalborg (Denmark) Karlstad (Sweden) ITMO of Saint Petersburg (Russia) Sogang (Corea) Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and University of Technology in Sydney (Australia) —— Tecnológico de Monterrey (Mexico) The Department’s international reputation for research also attracts junior researchers to UPF. In this regard, 52% of its PhD candidates are international, mainly from elsewhere in Europe (30%), but also increasingly from Asia (13%) and the USA (5%). As a result of its selective recruitment policy, there are a promising pipeline and solid foundations to further internationalize both the Department’s research and training activities.

UPF appears on some of the most influential global rankings:

Global rankings and results by subject

—— 1st Spanish university, 135th worldwide and 58th in Europe (Times Higher Education ranking, 2019) —— 11th university worldwide among universities aged 50 and under (Times Higher Education Young Universities Ranking, 2018) —— 2nd university in Spain and among the top 250 universities in the world (Shanghai ranking, 2018) The University also ranks high in ICT: —— Among the top 75 universities in the world in biotechnology (Shanghai ranking, 2018) —— Among the top 150 universities in the world in environmental engineering (Shanghai ranking, 2018) —— Among the top 175 universities in the world in engineering and technology (Times Higher Education ranking, 2019) —— Among the top 300 universities in the world in computer and engineering sciences (Shanghai ranking, 2018)

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The Polytechnic School offers three main bachelor’s degree programmes: Audiovisual Systems Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Telecommunications Network Engineering. The three programmes are highly integrated and share many first-year and several second-year subjects. It is thus possible for students on one programme to earn a second bachelor’s degree in just a little extra time by taking the other two programmes’ compulsory subjects as optional subjects for their original degree.

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The bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering places a great deal of emphasis on computational, physiological and biological modelling and thus features optional tracks focused on systems biology, neuroscience, the cardiovascular system and the musculoskeletal system.

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The new bachelor’s degree in Mathematical Engineering in Data Science is designed for talented mathematicians interested in sophisticated theory related to modern application domains requiring large-scale data analysis.

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The master’s degree in Sound and Music Computing is aimed at students with a technical background and some knowledge of music seeking to hone their research skills in the field of sound and music computing.

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The master’s degree in Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media focuses on three main fields of knowledge: interactive technology, cognitive sciences and interactive media.

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The technologies of tomorrow will provide both interactivity and intelligence. The master’s degree in Intelligent Interactive Systems addresses both trends, focusing on the design, analysis and development of agents and robots able to interact intelligently with humans and other agents, i.e., agents that can perceive, plan, act, learn and communicate.

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The master’s degree in Brain and Cognition will guide students through the latest and most exciting findings brought about by the interaction between cognitive research and brain research.

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The master’s degree in Computational Biomedical Engineering is focused on the study of computational techniques in the field of biomedical engineering, including both the quantitative analysis of biomedical images and signals and the modelling of living organisms and health-related products.

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The master’s degree in Computer Vision (coordinated by the Autonomous University of Barcelona) was designed to pool the research expertise of four Barcelona-based universities to offer students a state-of-the-art programme on methods and foundations in the emerging field of computer vision, which is having a growing impact on a wide range of intelligent systems.

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PhD programme in ICT.

April 2019

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