21
EIT ICT Labs MASTER SCHOOL HCID Programme Specialisations

EIT ICT Labs MASTER SCHOOL · EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations ... HCID EIT ICT Labs Master Programme Human Computer Interaction and Design The programme in Human

  • Upload
    vohuong

  • View
    220

  • Download
    0

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

EIT ICT LabsMASTER SCHOOL

HCID Programme Specialisations

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

HCID EIT ICT Labs Master Programme

Human Computer Interaction and Design The programme in Human Computer Interaction and Design focuses on study, design, development and evaluation of novel user interfaces and interactive systems taking into account human aspects, at the cognitive and sensory-motor levels, technological aspects, as well as business aspects.

The HCID programme is an interdisciplinary programme that offers courses on design and evaluation of interactive systems with a strong emphasis on user-centered design techniques: understanding the human capacities and consequences of using information technology as a tool for solving work related tasks, and developing and evaluating the systems by putting the user at the center of the design process. In addition, the programme will create a business thinking in terms of user profiles, user segments, house style, branding, and market development and product introductions.

Achieving the right user experience is important for marketing products and services and a necessary component for commercial success, as is witnessed nowadays in the smart phone market. Knowing how to translate interactive services into business opportunities and into attractive products is strategic.

Graduates from the HCID master’s programme will qualify for jobs in international and local organizations in both technical and business roles. Through their multidisciplinary attitude graduates are valuable in open innovation settings where different aspects (market, users, social aspects, media technologies) come together.

More information: http://www.masterschool.eitictlabs.eu/programme/majors/hcid/

Contact: Erik Jansen ([email protected])

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

Specialisations Specialisations are provided during the second year. The HCID programme offers seven specialisations (given at seven different universities) that all reflect the fact that Human-Computer Interaction has moved away from traditional desktop-based interfaces towards implicit and ubiquitous multimodal interaction paradigms.

To meet the requirements for geographic mobility, the chosen exit point needs to differ from the chosen entry point. The specialisations cover:

Mobile and Ubiquitous Interaction at KTH User Modeling for Advanced Human-Computer Interaction at Aalto University

Situated Interaction at Univ. Paris-Sud Multimodal Interaction at TU Berlin Intelligent Systems at University of Twente Affective Computing at UCL Cognitive Interaction at UNITN

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

Mobile and Ubiquitous Interaction (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

Konrad Tollmar is an Associate Professor at The Royal Institute of Technology. His main research interest is in Human-Computer Interaction, perceptual interfaces, and mobile media. Currently he leads the Mobile Service Lab at KTH / ICT / CoS within the area of mobile infrastructure and mobile services. Prior to this, he worked at MIT and The Interactive Institute. His most recent research has also expanded into market research and analysis as a research director at the Institute for Economic Research at Lund University.

Cristian Bogdan is Associate Professor at KTH- Royal Institute of Technology. His main research interests are in Human-Computer Interaction, developing novel methods for interaction design, design for user understanding of novel technologies such as electric vehicles and smart grids, as well as new methodologies and technologies for interactive systems development. Cristian worked previously at the Vienna University of Technology with interface modelling and at the Interactive Institute with physical interaction.

KTH offers a specialisation in mobile and ubiquitous interaction with courses in design, development and implementation of mobile and physical interaction. The two schools involved, ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and CSC (Computer Science and Communication) complement each other in mobile technology, user-centred design and design for physical interaction. KTH is well fitted for this specialisation with a strong research background in areas like CSCW, mobile computing and User Centred Design of communication media. Furthermore KTH offers a unique and integrated education and research environment with world-leading telcom industries located in Stockholm / Kista. Other facilities accessible to the master students include a mobile services lab, a haptics lab, a usability lab, a physical computing lab and a new center for information visualization (vic-sthlm.se) featuring ultra-high-resolution displays, holographic displays, eye tracking devices and multitouch surfaces.

Contact: Konrad Tollmar + Cristian Bogdan

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

Mobile and Ubiquitous Interaction Specialisation Mandatory Courses (15 ECTS):

Developing mobile applications 7.5 ECTS

Physical interaction design and realization 7.5 ECTS

Mobile and Ubiquitous Interaction Specialisation Electives:

Ubiquitous Computing 7.5 ECTS

Multimodal Interaction and Interfaces 7.5 ECTS

Sensor Based Systems 7.5 ECTS

Haptics 6 ECTS

Wireless and Mobile Network Architecture 7.5 ECTS

Theory and methodology of science in HCI 7.5 ECTS

Thematically this specialisation is related to the following EIT ICT Labs thematic areas: Smart Spaces, Health & Well-being and Smart Energy Systems.

Possible projects include:

Mobile navigation and interaction in Smart Spaces Experience and living Labs for communication in Health Care

Smart Mobile Networks for Vehicle Drivers and Transportation Smart Energy systems in the home and communities

More information is available at the Communication Systems department (CoS) in the KTH ICT school and at the Media and Interaction Design department in the KTH CSC school.

Interactive doormat made by students of the Physical Interaction Design course

Multitouch surface game at VIC Interaction design for exploration of an electric vehicle range on a mobile device

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

User Modeling for Advanced Human-Computer Interaction (Aalto University)

Samuel Kaski is a professor of computer science in Aalto University and Director of Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT. His research field is machine learning, and he develops with his research group methods for information visualization, proactive interfaces, multimodal information retrieval, computational biology and medicine, and brain signal analysis.

Marko Nieminen is a professor of Usability and User Interfaces at Aalto University School of Science (formerly Helsinki University of Technology). His research interests include HCI, Strategic Usability, Collaborative ICT and User-Centred design of Finance and Healthcare systems. His research group STRATUS is focused on research and teaching in strategic user-centred design.

Tapio “Tassu” Takala is a professor of Interactive Digital Media, Chair of Information Networks Degree Programme and head of the department of Media Technology. His research areas include computer graphics and interactive systems, virtual reality (VR), animation, sound synthesis, embodied interaction, computational models and simulation, and creativity.

Aalto University offers a specialisation in User modeling for advanced human- computer interaction with courses in machine learning, statistical signal modeling and elective topics including experimental user interfaces, machine learning and neural networks, digital image processing, speech recognition and language technology. The students learn how to apply advanced machine learning techniques for modeling users and their interactions with computers.

This specialisation is offered by the Aalto University School of Science: Department of Information and Computer Science, a pioneering institution of research in statistical pattern recognition, neural networks and machine learning; together with the Department of Media Technology.

Contact: Samuel Kaski + Marko Nieminen + Tapio Takala

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

User Modeling for Advanced Human-Computer Interaction Specialisation Mandatory Courses (17 ECTS):

Compulsory Language Course(s) 3 ECTS

Machine Learning: Basic Principles 5 ECTS

Statistical Signal Modeling 5 ECTS

Experimental User Interfaces 4 ECTS

User Modeling for Advanced Human-Computer Interaction Specialisation Electives:

Digital Image Processing 5 ECTS

Machine Learning and Neural Networks 5 ECTS

Speech Recognition 5 ECTS

Special Course in Language Technology 5 ECTS

Research Project in Computer and Information Science 2 ECTS

Seminar on User Interfaces and Usability 2 ECTS

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

Situated Interaction (Université Paris-Sud)

Michel Beaudouin-Lafon is professor in Computer Science at Université Paris-Sud and Institut Universitaire de France. He has worked in Human-Computer Interaction for over 25 years and specializes in novel interaction paradigms, collaborative interaction and engineering of interactive systems. He manages the Digiscope project that will create a network of high-end interactive rooms with applications in scientific discovery, product lifetime management, decision support and education.

Université Paris-Sud offers a specialisation in situated interaction: students will learn how to design, develop and evaluate interactive applications and interfaces tailored to the user needs and adapted to their contexts of use. They will be trained to the state-of-the-art in novel interaction techniques, including mixed reality, tangible interfaces, immersive environments, interactive visualization and collaborative interaction.

This specialisation is particularly relevant to the thematic areas that feature specific contexts of use, including Digital Cities, Smart Spaces, and, to a lesser extent, Health and Wellbeing. For Digital Cities, which is led by Paris-Sud, projects and master theses will focus on mobile interaction, augmented/mixed reality and the use of information visualization for supervision, monitoring and decision-making. For Smart Spaces, projects and master theses will focus on ubiquitous/tangible interaction, immersive interfaces and collaborative systems.

More information is available on the Université Paris-Sud web site: http://www.dep-informatique.u-psud.fr/formation/lmd/Master_HCID

Contact: Michel Beaudouin-Lafon

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

Situated Interaction Specialisation Mandatory Courses (10 ECTS):

Fundamentals of Situated Interaction 5 ECTS

Virtual and Augmented Reality 5 ECTS

Situated Interaction Specialisation Electives:

Mixed Reality and Tangible Interaction 4 ECTS

Groupware and Collaborative Interaction 4 ECTS

Haptics and Physical Modeling 4 ECTS

Interactive Information Visualization 4 ECTS

French Language and Culture 2.5 ECTS

Technical English 2.5 ECTS

Possilbe projects include:

! Augmented reality on mobile devices for visiting Digital Cities ! Remote collaboration using tangible interaction in interconnected Smart Spaces ! Collecting and visualizing personal data (Quantified Self) to improve Health & Wellbeing

Facilities

The students will have access to unique research platforms: EVE, a large-scale, multi-user, multi-sensorimotor immersive Evolutive Virtual Environment; iRoom, an interactive room for research in ambient intelligence; and WILD, a high-end room for interactive visualization featuring a large, ultra-high resolution wall display (131 million pixels), a multitouch table and a motion tracking system. Both platforms are part of the DIGISCOPE network of high-end visualisation rooms for collaborative interaction that just got funded by the French government (http://www.digiscope.fr).

The EVE immersive platform and the WILD room: two unique platforms for studying situated interaction and designing, prototyping and evaluating novel interfaces.

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

Multimodal Interaction (TU Berlin)

Sebastian Möller is full professor at TU Berlin and at the same time leads the Strategic Research Lab on Quality and Usability at T-Labs. His research interests include speech processing, speech-based and multimodal interaction, quality perception and prediction of audio-visual services, user behavior modeling, and usable security and privacy.

Alexander Raake is an Assistant Professor and heads the group for Assessment of IP-based Applications at Deutsche Telekom Labs, TU Berlin.

His research interests are in VoIP-based speech transmission systems, virtual communication environments for multi-party conferencing, multi-modal communication systems, audio-visual quality of IP-based video, 3D audio assessment, and 3D video assessment.

Gesche Joost is Professor for Design Research at the University of the Arts Berlin. Until 2010 she has been Professor for the Interaction Design & Media department at Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin), and since 2005 she has headed the Design Research Lab at Deutsche Telekom Laboratories. She leads several research projects, including projects on tactile human/computer interaction, gender and diversity in ICT, and Design Research.

TU Berlin offers a specialisation in multimodal interaction with courses in speech recognition, emotion and situation recognition, image analysis, vision-based interaction, and biometrics. The focus will be on innovative interaction paradigms, both from the technical as well as from the user side. TUB is particularly suited for educating this topic, as it disposes of a multidisciplinary group of professors and researchers with a background ranging from electrical engineering and computer science to psychology and design. Study and Master theses projects can be performed on campus in conjunction with Telekom Innovation Laboratories (T-Labs) as an EIT partner, as well as with numerous scientific institutions intensively collaborating with TUB in the near surroundings (DFKI, Fraunhofer institutes, etc.).

Contact: Sebastian Möller + Alexander Raake + Gesche Joost

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

Multimodal Interaction Specialisation Mandatory Courses (15 ECTS):

Speech Communication 6 ECTS

Communication Acoustics 6 ECTS

Computer-Supported Interaction 3 ECTS

Multimodal Interaction Specialisation Electives:

Photogrammetric Computer Vision 6 ECTS

Selected Topics in Vision-based Interaction 3 ECTS

Automatic Image Analysis 6 ECTS

IP-based Multimedia & Assessment 6 ECTS

Biometrics 3 ECTS

Application Areas

Multimodal interaction will be particularly important for smart spaces and digital cities, but of course future media and content delivery will also be a target of this specialization. Topics for master theses and projects will span from the user-centric development of new multimodal interaction paradigms on mobile devices, the usage of 3D audio and visual interaction paradigms, towards the automatic classification of context on the basis of multimodal sensory input in order to provide adaptive and personalizable services.

Facilities

Multimodal interaction requires both an understanding of the technical systems as well as of the human perception, judgment and action processes. To investigate multimodal interaction dedicated quality and usability lab spaces are available at TU Berlin, both for the courses as well as for master thesis projects.

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

At TU Berlin, teaching and research in Multimodal Interaction is organized by the Quality and Usability Lab, the Assessment of IP-based Applications Lab, Design Research Lab (at the University of Arts, UdK), the Distributed Agent Infrastructures Lab, and the Computer Graphics and the Computer Vision and Remote Sensing Labs. The Quality and Usability Lab, Assessment of IP-based Applications Lab and the Design Research Lab are part of both TUB/UdK and Telekom

Innovation Laboratories (T-Labs). This gives students and interns the opportunity to be directly involved in projects of practical impact and potential spin-offs. The Quality and Usability Lab has special competencies in multimodal interaction, auditory perception, and 3D spatial audio. In particular, there is a Wave-Field-Synthesis lab, which students can use for experiments.

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

Intelligent Systems (University of Twente)

The HMI group is led by Vanessa Evers and Dirk Heylen.

Vanessa Evers is a full professor of Human Media Interaction at the University of Twente. Her research focuses on Human Interaction with robots or machine and cultural aspects of Human Computer Interaction. She specifically likes to take theories on human behavior from

social psychology and see whether similar processes occur when we interact with technology. Vanessa is active in the HRI, CSCW and CHI communities and teaches courses such as Human Computer Interaction, and Computer Mediated Communication.

Dirk Heylen is a full professor Social Intelligent Computing at the University of Twente, working in the Human Media Interaction group. His research interests cover both the machine analysis of human (conversational) behavior and the generation of human-like (conversational) behavior by virtual agents. He is especially interested in the nonverbal and paraverbal aspects in conversation and what these signals reveal about the mental state (cognitive, affective, social).

Virtual agents and humanoid robots that perform automated reasoning and learn to interact automatically from the user and the environment. We look at tools and methods that can deal with incomplete, uncertain and ambiguous real-life data, obtained from the user, at cognitive architectures and mental models that define the internal reasoning of the agents, You will learn to apply strategic interaction styles and to use existing platforms to design and develop interaction with computers that act as with social intelligence skills.

Contact: Vanessa Evers + Dirk Heylen

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

Intelligent Systems Specialisation Electives:

Human Signal Processing 10 ECTS

Human Media Interaction Project 10 ECTS

Designing Synthetic Environments 10 ECTS

Information Foraging and Retrieval 10 ECTS

Research Methods for Multimodal Interaction 10 ECTS

Location

The University of Twente characterizes itself as an entrepreneurial university. It is the only true campus university in the Netherlands with all buildings situated on a leafy estate on the border of the city of Enschede. Situated in the east of the country. It is a dynamic, international institution where more than 3000 scientists and business professionals join forces in outstanding, cutting-edge research and development. The University of Twente caters for over 60 different nationalities on its campus. There are high-tech industries nearby (Thales, Nedap, Philips, ASML). The region hosts numerous SME’s. With these companies there are close ties. Many of the SME’s originated at the university through a special programme to help MSc’s and PhD’s set up their own company. In addition, some 90 student-run businesses have their home at the campus.

Research in human-computer interaction and design (HCID) is inherently a multi-disciplinary activity. Creative application and development of technology is one essential ingredient which however requires in-depth access to the relevant technologies that goes beyond a mere literature study or an occasional cooperation. HCID research often leads to prototypes that however cannot be evaluated without medium to large scale trials in a realistic setting. The University of Twente has established a living environment as an open resource and show-case facility for ubiquitous technology in realistic settings: the Smart eXperience lab (SmartXP). In this lab engineers, social scientists, and artists work together on the next generation of systems. The user group of the laboratory consist of scientists with a very broad background. They will review new systems taking a perspective that significantly differs from traditional peer review.

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

Affective Computing (UCL - University College London)

Duncan Brumby is a senior lecturer at UCL and is the MSc admissions chair for UCLIC. His research focuses on understanding how people interact with the technology systems in demanding situations, such as when driving a car or working in a busy environment. To support his work, Dr Brumby has attracted significant amounts of external funding from the UK’s Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC).

Nadia Berthouze is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Affective Computing and Interaction at UCL in London. She specializes in the design of systems and software that can sense the affective state of their users and use that information to tailor the interaction process. She is currently pursuing three lines of research looking at body movement as a medium to induce, recognize and measure the quality of experience of humans and in

particular of humans interacting and engaging through/with technology. She has been investigating these issues in the clinical context and in the gaming industry. She leads the Emo&Pain project that aims at developing affective-aware technology for chronic pain rehabilitation. She is also part of the ILHAIRE project aims at laying the foundations of a multimodal, multicultural laughter-enabled man-machine interaction.

Ann Blandford is Professor of Human–Computer Interaction at UCL, specializing in how people interact with information (experiencing serendipity, making sense of information, working with it), in how people interact with technology in complex settings, and in how to evaluate interactive systems. She is leading research grants on the design of medical technologies and on the design of effective research spaces.

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

Yvonne Rogers is a Professor of Interaction Design and director of UCLIC at UCL. Her research interests are in the areas of ubiquitous computing, interaction design and human-computer interaction. A central theme is how to design interactive technologies that can enhance life by augmenting and extending everyday, learning and work activities. This involves informing, building and evaluating novel user experiences through creating and assembling a diversity of pervasive technologies. Yvonne is also a visiting professor at the Open University, Indiana University

and Sussex University. She has spent sabbaticals at Stanford, Apple, Queensland University, and UCSD. Central to her work is a critical stance towards how visions, theories and frameworks shape the fields of HCI, cognitive science and Ubicomp. She been been instrumental in promulgating new theories (e.g., external cognition), alternative methodologies (e.g., in the wild studies) and far-reaching research agendas (e.g., “Being Human: HCI in 2020” manifesto). She has also been awarded a prestigious EPSRC dream fellowship where she will rethink the relationship between ageing, computing and creativity.

UCL offers a specialisation in affective computing: students will learn how to design, develop and evaluate novel interactive applications focusing on affective considerations. They will be trained to the state-of-the-art in novel interaction techniques, including mixed reality, tangible interfaces, immersive environments, interactive visualization and collaborative interaction.

More information is available on the UCL web site at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/uclic

Contact: Duncan Brumby + Nadia Berthouze + Ann Blandford + Yvonne Rogers

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

Affective Computing Specialisation Mandatory Courses (12 ECTS):

Physical Ergonomics 6 ECTS

Affective Interaction 6 ECTS

Affective Computing Specialisation Electives:

Virtual Environments 6 ECTS

Affective Computing and Human-Robot Interaction 6 ECTS

Human-Centred Perspective on Design 6 ECTS

Contextual Inquiry and Distributed Cognition 2 ECTS

Interacting with Information 2 ECTS

Qualitative Research Methods 2 ECTS

Organizational Informatics 6 ECTS

Possilbe projects include:

Affective interaction techniques for reflecting on physical experiences Affective-aware systems for rehabilitation and well-being Visual analytics for making sense of health information

Situated interactions in home healthcare

Application Areas

This specialisation will focus on affective interaction, virtual environments, and situated interactions. There will be a particular focus on the integration of the physical and the digital, whether around people’s engagement with the world around them or around measures of physical experience.

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

Facilities

The students will have access to usability laboratories equipped with state-of-the-art motion capture systems, biosensors, high definition cameras, eye tracking equipment and driving simulators and a new Interaction Research Laboratory, equipped with novel interactive devices for studying topics such as behavioral change. Students will also be benefitting from other facilities, such as an immersive CAVE-like display system, head-mounted and 3D displays, haptic input devices, 3D scanners, multi-touch tables, motion tracking systems, etc.

Example projects

Body Movement in Games - The emerging full-body game technology offers interesting opportunities for facilitating fitness and physical rehabilitation. Studies from psychology, neuroscience and HCI have shown that body movement is a powerful modality as it affects both cognitive and affective processes. It is hence important 1) to understand how this modality can be fully exploited to increase engagement and positive experience and also 2) develop new methodologies to evaluate such experience.

Considering the context of games for fitness or physical rehabilitation, possible research questions are:

Is there a relationship between control movement patterns and player's emotional experience?

Does body movement facilitate social interaction? Does movement recognition precision affect the player' experience in exertion games? How does wearing motion sensors affect the user's experience?

Designing for safer in-car interactions - People use mobile devices while driving. They shouldn't. But they do. So how can we as interaction designers encourage safer interactions behind the wheel? Our previous research has had investigated the effect of changing peoples' task priorities while interacting with their phone while driving. We have found that when people are instructed to prioritise safer driving while do a task on their phone they can actually drive better. They do this by frequently interleaving their attention between tasks -- that is, looking briefly at the phone and then back to the road ahead. In other words, frequent task interleaving is a good thing. Therefore, might we be able to design an in-car device that forces or encourages frequent interleaving? How might this be done? What does it mean to say that we have designed an interface to support multitasking?

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

Cognitive Interaction (University of Trento)

Nicu Sebe is an associate professor in Computer Science and he is leading the research in the areas of multimedia and human computer interaction in computer vision applications. He has a PhD from University of Leiden and was a professor at the University of Amsterdam. He has been involved in the organization of the major conferences and workshops addressing the computer vision and human-centered aspects of multimedia information retrieval. He was a programme chair of ACM Multimedia 2011 and a general chair of ACM Multimedia 2013. He was a guest editor for several

special issues in international journals and is the co-chair of the IEEE Computer Society Task Force on Human-centered Computing. He participated in several EC projects.

Remo Job is a professor of cognitive psychology and he is leading the research on psycholinguistics being interested especially on lexical access; lexical semantics, sentence parsing, acquisition of reading and writing, neuropsychology of language, processing and memory of visual stimuli. He was the dean of Faculty of Cognitive Science, the chair of the PhD Programme in Cognitive Science and Education, University of Trento and a Vice-Rector for Life Long Learning, University of Padova. He was a visiting professor in the Department of General Linguistics, University of Umea, Sweden,

and in the School of Behavioural Sciences, Macquire University, Australia. He participated in several EC projects.

Contact: Nicu Sebe + Remo Job

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

Cognitive Interaction Specialisation Mandatory Courses (18 ECTS):

Cognitive psychology 6 ECTS

Cognitive linguistics 6 ECTS

Knowledge representation 6 ECTS

Cognitive Interaction Specialisation Electives:

Text processing 6 ECTS

Research design 9 ECTS

HCI & Multimodal systems 6 ECTS

Computational methods for data analysis 6 ECTS

EIT ICT Labs Master School: HCID – Specialisations

Location

At Trento the education in the area of HCI and design is jointly covered by the Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science (DISI), the Faculty of Cognitive Sciences and the Interdepartmental Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC) which is an interdisciplinary centre for teaching and research in cognitive neuroscience, dedicated to understanding the functioning of the human brain and focused on cognitive interaction, psychology, neuroscience and science of behavior and education areas. The proposed interdisciplinary curriculum is centered along two interrelated areas: Cognitive interaction and Language and Multimodal Interfaces focusing on human-computer interaction, neurophysiological aspects of cognitive processes, and the study of human behavior.

The teaching staff is active in research in these areas and has showed in the past years strong competences as demonstrated by the high quality track record of publications as well as substantial funding resources obtained at both national and European level.

In addition to this specific scientific focus, University of Trento provides its students with access to the local and national network of companies, SMEs, and research institutions, in order to strengthen their entrepreneurial profile by establishing collaborations for the master thesis, as well as the opportunity of carrying out internships. To this purpose, it is worth mentioning that ICTLabs@Italy has a strong focus on design and interaction as witnessed by the co-location of large enterprises (e.g., (e.g., Centro Ricerche FIAT, Engineering SpA, Telecom Italia) with specific emphasis on these technologies.

Overall, the University of Trento was ranked first in Italy in 2010 in terms of performance. The Faculty of Cognitive Science is the only one of its kind in Italy. Most of its members are affiliated with the Interdepartmental Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), which is a constellation of laboratories whose common objective is to understand the functioning of the human brain. CIMeC has already reached sufficient strength in several areas as to be recognized internationally as one of the premier centres for Mind/Brain Sciences. CIMeC’s research laboratories are equipped with one of the most powerful systems in Europe (MedSpec 4T Bruker MRI), with evoked potentials (ERPs), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and optical imaging. The integration of efforts in the neuroimaging domain with those in clinical research, computational modelling, and behavioural research, make CIMeC almost unique in the breadth of scope of the project and will certainly make it internationally competitive.