| | | Annual Report 2001 | |
Since it started operations in 1992, UNU/IIST has emphasised its capacity building activities for developing countries, and has benefited them by strengthening their education, development and research capacities in the area of software technology. Training objectives have been achieved through the fellowship programme, the post-graduate courses, and other activities. UNU/IIST has also emphasised its research excellence, to enhance and protect its own image, to attract partners, and to set high standards for developing countries. UNU/IIST has tried to combine its training and research activities by choosing formal methods, a most advanced software technique, as its focal point. Serving its host country, China (in particular Macau SAR), is a part of the obligations of UNU/IIST. UNU/IIST has undertaken many activities in China and Macau, and established a good protocol and relation with the new Macau government authority since the Macau handover in 1999.
Since 1998, UNU/IIST has gradually expanded its activities. The UNU/IIST research agenda has covered more topics of formal methods, and invited visitors to help UNU/IIST research and training. Since 1999 UNU/IIST has established the project of the Development of Computer Science Department in Developing Countries, and leaned more towards computer science curriculum development. Through this project UNU/IIST has sent fellows to its partner universities in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, South Korea and the United Kingdom, where they can learn a wide range of subjects in the area of computer science.
The UNU/IIST Programme has been - Capacity Building in Developing Countries for Software Development, focusing on formal techniques and university computer science curriculum.
The UNU/IIST research area has been design methods for real-time systems and application of formal techniques for software infrastructures. In 2001, it continued these two research projects:
These two projects also researched into new topics: Formalising Unified Modelling Language (UML) and Object-Oriented (OO) Programming, Co-design of Mixed Hardware/Software Systems, and Software Tools. In this period, 22 UNU/IIST reports have been accepted for publication in international conferences or journals, and 2 books: Algebraic Approach to Hardware Compilation and Specification Case Studies in RAISE have been completed by UNU/IIST staff.
The UNU/IIST research projects always contain a component of training, and invite fellows from developing countries to participate in the projects. UNU/IIST has also established another three projects devoted to the capacity building in computer science education for developing countries. They are
Through these projects, UNU/IIST has developed and distributed a recommended computer science curriculum for developing countries. In 2001, based on this recommendation, UNU/IIST helped a professor from Chittagong University in Bangladesh to propose a computer science curriculum for his university to create a computer science department there, and also gave a presentation at the Workshop on Computer Science Education in the 21st Century in Shanghai, China, where IEEE and ACM presented their recommendations.
The projects of `Curriculum for Formal Software Development' and `Development of Computer Science Departments in Developing Countries' invited university lecturers as UNU/IIST fellows to study at UNU/IIST or at its partner universities in industrial countries in order to prepare new courses for their home universities. UNU/IIST has established partnerships with 11 universities in industrial countries to help UNU/IIST train university lecturers from developing countries. Utrecht University in the Netherlands has also established a joint PhD programme with UNU/IIST, so that UNU/IIST fellows can receive education towards PhD degrees there. Another five universities in Australia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore and the United Kingdom are also considering to organise joint PhD programme with UNU/IIST.
In 2001, UNU/IIST established new training courses on Software Project Management and Co-design of Hardware/Software Systems, and expanded its training course programme to include training schools. A training school includes a set of courses designed for the host country and its neighbouring region. The school recruits local and external lecturers to help in teaching. In 2001, UNU/IIST organised 6 schools in Brazil, China, India(2), Macau and Mongolia.
The total number of UNU/IIST training schools and courses in 2001 was 16 with about 600 participants from more than 26 countries. The total number of UNU/IIST fellowships in 2001 was 36 from 13 developing countries, and the majority of them came from universities.
UNU/IIST has continued to develop good connections with China, in particular with Macau. As proposed by Chinese authority, UNU/IIST has been active in the western part of China. In 2001, we recruited 2 fellows from this part of China, and organised 5 training courses there. UNU/IIST continued its IT projects in Macau. The internet library for the UNESCO Center of Macau was further expanded to include 291 full-text books and magazines. With the Office for the Development of Telecommunications and Information Technology of the Macau SAR government, we jointly organised the Software Project Management course in Macau in January 2001, and organised the Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference in Macau in December 2001 jointly with the above office and the University of Macau.
Dr. Richard Moore resigned from UNU/IIST in February 2001. Dr. Moore served UNU/IIST for about 6 years, and contributed greatly to the UNU/IIST activities. After his leave, he still helped UNU/IIST deliver courses in Nigeria and Mongolia, and establish the joint PhD programme in Portugal. UNU/IIST has recruited two new academic staff to fill our two vacancies by the middle of 2002.
In order to further expand its activities, UNU/IIST made efforts to raise funds in 2001.
| | | Annual Report 2001 | |