General Information

The Faculty of Computer Science (Fakultät für Informatik) is one of 15 faculties at the University of Vienna, Austria.  It is a principal centre for teaching and research in computer science and business informatics in Austria.

The Faculty offers a wide range of studies and awards including Diploma, Master, Bachelor and Doctorate. The Faculty is mainly involved in the studies on Computer Science (Informatik) and Business Informatics (Wirtschaftinformatk), but provides services for many other studies including Business Administration (Betriebswirtschaftslehre), Statistics (Statistik), and Economics (Volkswirtschaft).

The Faculty of Computer Science maintains several locations: offices in the center of the city near the university headquater as well as offices at the university campuses BWZ in the 21st district of Vienna and Nordbergstrasse. Currently, about 60 academic staff and over 2,000 students, both full- and part-time, are affiliated with the Faculty and its institutes.

The Faculty of Computer Science is home of the Institute of Distributed and Multimedia Systems, Institute of Knowledge and Business Engineering, Institute of Scientific Computing, Research Lab Computational Technologies, Research Lab Educational Technologies, Didactic Center for Computer Science.

The Faculty of Computer Science runs several research projects in the field of computer science and business informatics funded by national, european and international agencies and industry. The institutes have established strategic partnerships with partners from academia and industry.

History of the Faculty of Computer Science

The roots of research and teaching in Computer Science and Business Informatics at the University of Vienna go back to the 70s, when the Department for Statistics (Institut für Statistik) started initial activities that led to the establishment of the trial studies, the so called "Studienversuch Betriebs- und Wirtschaftsinformatik", in 1972. In the 80s, because of the great success, the trial studies in Business Informatics ("Wirtschaftsinformatik") became regular studies at the University in the 80s. In 1986 the resources in the field of computer science were expanded significantly. In addition to the development of teaching and basic research activities in the areas of statistics and computer science, the department became very popular in the public because of the pioneering work of Prof. Bruckmann on forecasting models and techniques for the elections to the Austrian National Council (Nationalrat), an application domain with high public appeal.

On December 31st, 1992 the Department for Statistics and Computer Science (as it was named in the meantime) was divided into the following three institutes: Institute for Statistics, Operations Research and Computing Methodology, Institute for Applied Computer Science and Information Systems, and Institute for Software Engineering and Parallel Systems.

On January 1, 2000, in the context of the university law UOG 93, the Institute for Applied Computer Science and Information Systems became the Institute for Computer Science and Business Informatics, the Institute for Software Engineering and Parallel Systems became the Institute for Software Science.

Until December 31, 2003, Computer Science and Business Informatics groups were part of the School of Business, Economics, and Computer Science (Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften und Informatik). On January 1, 2004, in the context of the university law UG 2002, the University of Vienna established the Faculty of Computer Science.