The Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS) conducts research in computer science and artificial intelligence. SICS is a non-profit foundation sponsored by the Swedish National Board for Technical and Industrial Development (a Government agency commonly known as NUTEK) and by an industrial association of five major companies, Asea Brown Boveri AB, CelsiusTech AB, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, IBM Svenska AB, Televerket (Swedish Telecom) and Forsvarets Materielverk, FMV (Defense Materiel Administration).
The main role of SICS is bridging the gap between academic research in computer science in Sweden and related industrial research and development, thus contributing to the competitive strength of Swedish industry. SICS carries out advanced research in selected areas of Computer Science on one hand and promotes use of new ideas and results in industry on the other hand.
SICS' personnel is also engaged in education, both at undergraduate and PhD program level at several Swedish universities. In this way new insights and research results are made available to computer science and computer engineering students. Several senior researchers hold university (part time) positions.
SICS research results achieved during the period 1988 - 1992 have been documented by more than 100 SICS Research Reports and 60 SICS Technical Reports. In addition, more than 150 reviewed contributions of SICS researchers have been published in international journals, or presented at international conferences. In addition, SICS researchers have actively taken part in more than 100 international workshops. During this period 8 researchers received PhD and 10 Teknologie Licentiat degrees.
Several research prototypes have become available during the period, and in many cases widely distributed within academia and industry. Some of them had found their way to regular industrial use.
The SICS' research program consists of 2 parts: The first part (accounts for approx. 55Research Program (Ramprogram in Swedish) is mainly responsible for the build up and maintenance of competence and high research standards, and generation of new, industrially relevant, scientific results. The program constitutes the basis for communication with the national and international research community and a source of knowledge and technology towards industry.
The second part, performed as a collection of research contracts (commissioned projects) is responsible for knowledge transfer and result dissemination. It also provides a valuable feed-back for the Basic Research Program activities. Examples of commissioned projects include both contracts from individual companies (mostly current industrial funders of SICS) and work within European research programs, such as Esprit and Drive. Up to now SICS has participated in 12 projects funded by the Commission of the European Communities. SICS is a member of European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics, ERCIM.
SICS is organized into three research laboratories:
Each laboratory consists, on the average, of 20 people. In December 1992 SICS had approx. 65 researchers, 10 of them on short-term basis. About 20 researchers are at post-doctoral level. The vast majority of the remainder are studying towards doctoral degrees.