The Laboratory of Information Processing Science is one of the four laboratories forming the Department of Computer Science at the Helsinki University of Technology. Unlike most of the laboratories of HUT, typically consisting of a single full professor and other faculty and staff, the laboratory is a federation of four full professors and one associate professor who share facilities of the laboratory.
The mission of the laboratory is based on its context in a technical university:
Research:
The research activities of the laboratory cover a broad spectrum of applications and aspects of information technology, software engineering, and computer science in industrial products and processes as well as in the rapidly growing field of telecommunications and electronic media. The present emphasis is on the following topical areas:
The research activities of the laboratory are to a large degree conducted through the TAI Research Centre and Institute Telecommunication Software (TOTI) in co-operation with their other member laboratories.
Education:
The educational activities of the laboratory are fourfold:
The organization of the laboratory is indicated in the chart below.
Figure 1: Organization of the Laboratory of Information Processing Science
The Laboratory of Information Processing Science was originally established in 1968 in the Department of Industrial Economics with the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. During the 70's two associate professors were added to the faculty. After the formation of the Faculty of Information Technology in mid 80's, the laboratory was moved to the newly established Department of Computer Science. During the same years, three other full chairs have been added to the laboratory, one by conversion from an associate professorship.
The 1996 budget of the university had 7.51 Mmk direct funding for the Laboratory of Information Processing Science. This direct budget funding included 4.59 Mmk for salaries of the laboratory faculty and staff and 1.88 Mmk for salaries of the part-time teachers. The direct budget included 0.14 Mmk for basic studies in English and 0.25 Mmk for basic studies in Swedish. The budget included also 0.03 Mmk for summer school and 0.62 Mmk funding for equipment etc.
In addition to the direct budget funding the laboratory reseived external funding including funding trough IIA and ITSW (10.67 Mmk). The total external funding during year 1996 was 12.32 Mmk. The external funding was mostly used by the research projects in the laboratory.
The present number of majoring M.Sc. students in the laboratory is 294. In addition to this there are 87 majoring post graduate students. A total of some 14000 credit units were given by the laboratory during 1996.
The number of graduates during years 1993-1996 is given in chart below.
| year | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 |
| M.Sc. | 21 | 42 | 48 | 42 |
| Lic.Tech. | 4 | 4 | 5 | 2 |
| Dr.Tech. | 1 | 5 | 2 | 0 |
Figure 2: Number of persons graduated from Laboratory of Information Processing Science
The laboratory is located in the main building of HUT, second, third and fourth floors. It also has rented space in the Innopoli building in Otaniemi Science and Technology Park. The total space is 1600 square meters.
The laboratory has its own Ethernet which is gatewayed to the campus network and the Internet. Presently over 130 computers are linked to the net. These include the student laboratory Niksula, consisting of 40 Silicon Graphics Indy computers. The other 90 computers include 20 Unix workstations, 40 Apple Macintosh computers and 30 PCs.