Focus of the Institute of Theoretical Computer Science

With its reasearch focus and its teaching program, the Institute of Theoretical Computer Science covers the main aspects of theoretical concerns of computer science.

Our lectures and seminars include the whole range from introductory courses up to advanced courses, offering our students access to both the theoretical underpinnings of computer science as well as to topical research areas.

Our research aims at bridging the gap between theory and practise in computer science, by cooperating with other research groups in the umbrella of research clusters such as HAEC and cfaed.  We are also involved in the training of up-and-coming young scientists by participating in the research training groups QuantLA and RoSI.

The main focus of the research conducted at our institute is the formal modeling and analysis of artificial systems.  By this we mean systems devised by humans, either software systems in their own right, or systems partially or completely controlled by software.  Devising a formal model for such systems is a crucial step in computer science to obtain a precise understanding of the problem at hand when only given an informal problem description.  The usage of formal models with well-defined semantics facilitates the exchange of models and enables the use of automatic analysis procedures.  A formal analysis can provide evidence about functional properties of the systems, e.g., verification of correctness, as well as provide assistance in examining non-functional properties such as response time or result quality.

At the center of this research focus, our institute concentrates on devising and examining formal modeling languages as well as developing and implementing analysis procedures for formal models.  For this we combine ideas and methods from fields as diverse as algebra, artificial intelligence, theoretical computer science, and probability theory.