200px, South west view of the IWR building, located at Heidelberg's New Campus (until March 2016) The Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (short IWR) is a scientific research institute of the

Heidelberg University Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is Germany's oldest unive ...

, Germany. It centralizes scientific activity and promotes research and work in

scientific computing Computational science, also known as scientific computing, technical computing or scientific computation (SC), is a division of science, and more specifically the Computer Sciences, which uses advanced computing capabilities to understand and s ...

. Founded in 1987 by the Heidelberg University and the state of

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...

, IWR participates in joint project and cooperations with industry in Germany as well as abroad. As a research institute with about 380 staff, IWR is considered one of the world's largest research centers for scientific computing.

Objectives

The main objectives of the IWR are the * Mathematical Modeling and Computational Simulation of Complex Systems in Science and Technology, * Development and Use of Computer Methods and Software for Applications in Industry and Economy, * Visualization, Computer Graphics, Image Processing and the * Education in Scientific Computing. Within the ''Zukunftskonzept'' (institutional strategy) of the 2nd

German Universities Excellence Initiative The Excellence Initiative of the German Council of Science and Humanities and the German Research Foundation (DFG) aims to promote cutting-edge research and to create outstanding conditions for young scholars at universities, to deepen coopera ...

further research and application areas were exploited with a focus on

Digital Humanities Digital humanities (DH) is an area of scholarly activity at the intersection of computing or Information technology, digital technologies and the disciplines of the humanities. It includes the systematic use of digital resources in the humanitie ...

and Computational archaeology.

Graduate school

Since November 2007 the training and education of Ph.D. students at IWR is supported by the Heidelberg

Graduate School Postgraduate education, graduate education, or graduate school consists of academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications usually pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate (bachel ...

of Mathematical and Computational Methods for the Sciences (HGS MathComp). As part of the

, HGS MathComp is a supported institution partially established and located at IWR, in order to realize innovative concepts for a structured education of Ph.D. students in interdisciplinary research projects.

Software development

The strong focus of the IWR on applied research leads from prototype implementations to maintained software, which is available as

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

freeware Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...

like the *

Deal.II deal.II is a free, open-source software, open-source library to solve partial differential equations using the finite element method. The current release is version 9.6, released in August 2024. The founding authors of the project — W ...

library, *

DUNE A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat ...

, which includes the * UG toolbox to solve

partial differential equations In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which involves a multivariable function and one or more of its partial derivatives. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" that solves the equation, similar to how ...

on unstructured meshes or the *

GigaMesh Software Framework The GigaMesh Software Framework is a free and open-source software for display, editing and visualization of 3D-data typically acquired with structured light or structure from motion. It provides numerous functions for analysis of archaeologic ...

for processing high-resolution triangular meshes as well as

proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software, software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing t ...

like the * MUSCOD-II package for numerical solution of optimal control problems.

History

The initial concept of the IWR was proposed in 1985 and accepted by the University Senate two years later. After securing the necessary finances, the first parallel computer was purchased in 1989. The Graduiertenkolleg "Modellierung und Wissenschaftliches Rechnen in Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften" (Modelling and Scientific Computing in Mathematics and the Sciences) was established in 1992 and evaluated by the

German Research Foundation The German Research Foundation ( ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2019, the DFG had a funding bud ...

(DFG) in 1994 and 1998. The founding director is

Willi Jäger Willi Jäger (born 15 August 1940 in Křelovice (Plzeň-North District), Kschellowitz, Bohemia) is a German mathematician. Education He completed his PhD in 1966 the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, University of Munich under the direc ...

managing the IWR from 1987 until 1998. The managing director from 1999 to 2004 was professor Jürgen Warnatz. From 2005 to 2016 the board of directors consisted of professor Hans Georg Bock as managing director, professor Willi Jäger, and professor Bernd Jähne. In the first quarter of 2016 all the IWR groups moved to the a new building called ''Mathematikon'' (Im Neuenheimer Feld 205), which can easily reached by public transportation and is located at the border of the campus at the Berliner Straße (main road). This enabled an optimal integration with the Faculty for Mathematics and Computer Science, which also moved into the ''Mathematikon''. Since 2017 the managing director is professor Andreas Dreuw. Michael Winckler is the administrative director of the IWR and the Heidelberg Graduate School of Mathematical and Computational Methods for the Sciences (HGS MathComp). The chairman of the HGS MathComp is professor Peter Bastian together with professor Dieter W. Hermann and professor Hans Georg Bock as deputy chairman.

External links

Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing

Heidelberg Graduate School of Mathematical and Computational Methods for the Sciences

References

{{authority control 1987 establishments in West Germany Computer science institutes in Germany Information technology research institutes Mathematical institutes Heidelberg University Research institutes established in 1987