Support for the Helsinki area ICT research community

The HIIT/Helsinki ICT community

HIIT supports directly the ICT research community defined as the research groups working in the following departments at the two host universities:

  • Computer science (University of Helsinki, Faculty of Science),
  • Computer science (Aalto, School of Science),
  • Communications and Networking (Aalto, School of EE),
  • Signal Processing and Acoustics (Aalto, School of EE).

Note that we do not consider the relevance of individual researchers with respect to ICT, but define the community (scope of HIIT) on the level of departments. Also please note that unlike before, the strategic focus of HIIT is defined via inclusive, thematic focus areas, not via units with explicit research agendas. This means that any member of the Helsinki ICT community defined above, who is working in one these fields, can automatically consider her/himself as a member of the HIIT focus area, and no pre-enrollment is required, but when considering funding requests, the HIIT SG will case-by-case assess the relevance of the proposal with respect to the focus areas. Finally, please note that while the focus areas are prioritized in the long-term strategic postdoc funding, read on about other instruments for supporting the community more broadly.

Short-term funding support

HIIT supports initiatives that support HIIT’s mission by enhancing the quality, collaboration activities, impact and visibility of research on information technology. We encourage applications that strengthen one or more of the HIIT focus areas, but in addition, also welcome applications that support HIIT’s mission and provide clear added value by enabling high-impact activities that might not take place without this support. More instructions and examples of suitable targets can be found here.

The funding decisions will be made by the monthly HIIT Steering Group. Please submit your proposal through this form at least one week in advance to give the steering group some time to study it before the meeting.

Strategic postdoc recruitment

We regularly organise joint Aalto University–University of Helsinki postdoc calls with the aim of getting the best possible talents in ICT to Finland. These calls (and the underlying process, involving setting up application forms, summaries and facilitating interviews) are offered as a service to the whole Helsinki ICT community, not just HIIT focus areas. In addition to the postdoc calls, we can support recruitment of new potential talents by providing funding for inviting them to visit Finland at any time (through the community support instrument described above).

The applicant in the calls is the candidate. If an excellent candidate emerges and the decision needs to be made before the next call, a potential supervisor can bring up a candidate following the guidelines in https://www.hiit.fi/hiit-funded-postdocs. This applies also to more senior Fellow or visiting professor level candidates.

Support for finalising the PhD thesis

HIIT provides funding to support PhD students in the final writing-up stage of their doctoral studies. The funding covers up to a maximum of 3 months salary and is strictly intended to be used for the sole purpose of writing up on a full-time basis, i.e., you cannot continue to be involved in project work with your PhD supervisor while being paid by this funding. If you are currently employed outside of the university, then it is assumed you will take a leave of absence while receiving the funding. In either case, the amount of the salary follows the universities’ normal practice.

To be eligible, you must be a final year PhD student and have completed all aspects of your doctoral studies with the exception of writing up your dissertation. Specifically, you are only eligible to apply if all of the following are true:

  • You have all the necessary credits to graduate.
  • All the publications to be listed in the dissertation are already completed.
  • You have a plan for when you are going to submit your thesis.
  • The period applied for starts in 2021.

Please submit your application using this form.

Doctoral education

We are supporting recruitment of new doctoral students candidates via the joint calls organised twice a year by HICT, the Helsinki Doctoral Education Network in ICT. HICT also supports various cross-department and cross-university events for students, and organises additional training for students willing to enhance for example their pitching and presentation skills. The contact person regarding HICT activities is Christina Sirviö, email: hict-apply@hiit.fi.

Advertising research

Publishing Highlights and other content on this website is an important way of presenting our work to a bigger audience. Please contribute! This website has been renewed recently and is now hosted by an external company. Making updates requires a separate user account, so please send your contribution to coordinator@hiit.fi, who will take care of publishing the text. Please include a picture (or pictures or videos)! We can also help you in preparing a press release.

Please use the new logos and templates, for instance in your HIIT presentations.

Publishing websites in HIIT’s domain

Websites of e.g. research projects and conferences that cannot utilize the normal university templates can be published in HIIT’s domain. There are a number of options depending on what you need and what kind of tools you wish to use (and what we will be able to do to help). Please contact coordinator@hiit.fi for details.

Helsinki Distinguished Lecture Series

HIIT is coordinating a high-profile lecture series on Future Information Technologies, see https://www.hiit.fi/HelsinkiITLectures. The idea is not to run yet another series of scientific guest lectures, but to attract a more versatile audience and focus on highlighting the research challenges and solutions faced by current and future information technology, as seen by the internationally leading experts in the field. An ideal candidate is an esteemed visionary with an academic background (e.g., the CTO of an IT company, or a university professor with high societal or industrial impact). If you have a suitable candidate in mind, please contact the coordinator of the Lecture Series, Kimmo Kaski. Never initiate discussions with a potential candidate without consulting Kimmo first. The final funding decisions will be made by the HIIT steering group.

Software

HIIT has institutional licenses for MuJoCo, which is an advanced physics simulator. Please contact coordinator@hiit.fi if you are interested in using it.