Department of Computer Science

Research Areas

The Department of Computer Science at the University of Tübingen is located in a unique research landscape in Germany. Along with the department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, the department of Computer Science is invoveld in several joint projects with the three Max Planck Institutes for Inteligent Systems (MPI-IS), Biological Cybernetics (MPI-BC) and Developmental Biology (MPI-DB), to perform oustanding and intenationaly recognisable cutting-edge research. Close research connections also exist with the Werner-Reichardt-Center for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN), the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience (BCCN) Tübingen, the Hertie-Institut for Clinical Brain Research and the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM).

The Department of Computer Science is involved in cross-cutting of state of the art research projects. Starting January 1st 2019 is the Cluster of Excellence "Machine Learning in Science" which was acquired together with the MPI for Intelligent Systems and the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien as part of the Excellence Initiative. Together with the MPI for Intelligent Systems, the Department of Computer Science is one of the driving research partners in the Cyber Valley initiative. This initiative involves bundling the local competencies in industry and research into intelligent and self-learning systems in the Reutlingen-Stuttgart-Tübingen region, as well as visibly developing them internationally.

Other comprehensive research projects involving the Department of Computer Science include:

Ethical issues regarding machine learning and artificial intelligence are investigated, for example, in the Ethics & Philosophy Lab within the Cluster of Excellence.

Bioinformatics & Medical Informatics

Overview

Research in Bioinformatics, Medical Informatics and Systems Biology is rooted in the development of novel models, algorithms, and software tools dedicated to answering pertinent questions in the life sciences. Current and past research projects in Tübingen have dealt with developing solutions to challenging questions arising out of the diverse fields of phylogenetics, evolutionary of protein structures, structural bioinformatics, computational drug discovery, immuno-informatics, genomics, microbiome analysis, and gene expression analysis. Diverse and complex, these fields contain an immense opportunity for pushing the realm of knowledge and thereby solving contemporary problems in medicine, which require solutions to streamline the development of personalised cancer immune-therapies or close the gap in our understanding of microbiome-host interactions during an infection.

The Tübingen researchers in Bioinformatics, Medical Informatics and Systems Biology are also members in the following interdisciplinary centers:

Work Groups

Selected Current Research Projects

Collaborative Projects
Individual Projects

Machine Learning

Overview

Research in the department of Machine Learning strives to contribute to the understanding of the following basic principles:

We also work on concrete applications of Machine Learning such as Computer Vision, Robotics, Medicine and Biology. Our research therefore also contributes to the fact that machine learning can play a more central role in the process of gaining scientific knowledge in a wide range of disciplines.

Selected Current Research Projects

Collaborative Projects
Individual Projects

Work Groups

Software & Systems Engineering

Overview

The Software and Systems Engineering group is actively engaged in research that deals with the core practical and technical aspects of Computer Science from first principles to practical approaches. Applied projects are focused mainly on the development of large-scale software architectures, the analyses and transformation of structured data, algorithms for automatic evidence generation and optimization as well as the development of solutions for complex web-based distributed systems. Technical approaches are more focused on the analyses and optimization of complex embedded systems, and communication networks and computational architectures, all of which rely heavily on the application of machine learning algorithms.

Practical Computer Science

Technical Computer Science

Work Groups

Selected Current Research Projects

Collaborative Projects
Individual Projects

Theory

Overview

Theoretical computer sciences performs research on the very foundations of the field of computer science. It tries to answer fundamental questions such as:

Moreover, the field of theoretical computer science develops formal frameworks that can be used by other branches of computer science to describe and analyze complex systems.

Selected Current Research Projects

Collaborative Projects
Individual Projects

Work Groups

Vision & Cognition

Overview

The Department of Computer Science in Tübingen is home to a unique interdisciplinary research group which has a strong focus on visual cognition, multi-sensor and sensor-motors processing and their interactions with the goal of making connections to the abstract underpinnings of human cognitive mechanisms and neural encoding processes. In order to achieve these research goals, which drive the understanding of psychophysics and cognitive neurosciences, sophisticated techniques in advanced image analysis, robotics, intelligent software systems, and computer graphics are employed.

The department is also involved in the interfaculty Cognitive Science Center at the University of Tübingen. The CSC pursues the goal, together with the humanities and natural sciences, of gaining a deeper understanding of cognition. For cognition generates behavior, language, and thereby our culture. It is indispensably grounded in physics, biology, and neurobiology and can be understood through modeling using machine learning, mathematics, and statistics.

Work Groups

Selected Current Research Projects

Collaborative Projects
Individual Projects

General News

20.04.2023

New professorship at the Department of Computer Science

A warm welcome to Prof. Dr. Georg Martius, who as of April 1st 2023 holds the new chair for…

Read more

02.04.2021

New professorship at the Department of Computer Science

A warm welcome to Prof. Dr. Robert C. Williamson, who as of April 1st 2021 holds the new chair for…

Read more

01.03.2021

New professorship at the Department of Computer Science

A warm welcome to Prof. Dr. Gerard Pons-Moll, who as of March 1st 2021 holds the new chair for…

Read more

Prizes

26.09.2023

Alfried Krupp Prize for Zeynep Akata Schulz

Cluster professor Prof. Dr. Zeynep Akata Schulz has been awarded the Alfried Krupp Prize 2023.

Read more

15.02.2023

ERC Consolidator Grant for Jakob Macke

AI researcher Prof. Dr. Jakob Macke has received a Consolidator Grant from the European Research…

Read more

23.06.2022

Prof. Dr. Andreas Geiger wins Longuet-Higgins Prize

Second prestigious award for the KITTI dataset, which is in demand worldwide for the development and…

Read more

Events

27.07.2022

Inaugural lectures of Prof. Dr. Jakob Macke and Prof. Dr. Sven Nahnsen

on Wednesday, July 27, 2022, from 4:00 p.m. to 5:20 p.m., in the lecture hall of the AI Research…

Read more

06.05.2022

Launch event of the Cognitive Science Center

The launch of the interfaculty Cognitive Science Center will be celebrated with a public research…

Read more

04.03.2022

3. KuVS Fachgespräch "Network Softwarization" 07.–08.04.2022 (online)

This workshop discusses advances in Software-defined networking (SDN), network function…

Read more