Welcome to VGSCO

Modern optimization methods are a key issue in successful decision making in many areas such as energy production and trading, financial and insurance management, transportation and communication, network design  and  bioinformatics. 

The Vienna Graduate School on Computational Optimization is a joint initiative between the University of Vienna, the TU Wien, IST Austria and the Vienna University of Economics and Business funded by the Austrian Science Funds (FWF).

The short-time goal of the research and training program of this Graduate School (DK+ program) is to give the PhD candidates a comprehensive training in optimization with special emphasis on algorithmic and computational aspects as well as to prepare them for a scientific career by introducing them into the scientific networks of the participating scientists. The structure of the program also allows to study the relations between different areas of optimization. In the long term we will foster collaboration between the members and their respective institutions in order to make Vienna a place of excellence in Computational Optimization.

The Vienna Graduate School on Computational Optimization offers lecture series given by international experts in optimization related fields, organizes research seminars, retreats, soft skills courses, scientific workshops, and social events, provides travel grants, and supports research stays abroad.

Participating Institutions

• Faculty of Mathematics, University of Vienna (Research Group on Applied Mathematics with Emphasis on Optimization, Research Group Computational Mathematics)
• Faculty of Computer Science, University of Vienna (Research Group Theory and Applications of Algorithms)
• Faculty of Business, Economics and Statistics, University of Vienna (Department of Statistics and Operations Research)
• Faculty of Informatics, TU Wien (Institute of Logic and Computation)
• IST Austria (Distributed Algorithms and Systems, Discrete Optimization)
• Department of Finance, Accounting and Statistics, Vienna University of Economics and Business (Institute for Statistics and Mathematics)

The different areas of optimization covered by the faculty members of the program are:

• Combinatorial Optimization (Henzinger, Kolmogorov, Musliu, Raidl)
• Global Optimization (Bomze, Kolmogorov, Neumaier)
• Heuristic Optimization (Musliu, Neumaier, Raidl)
• Nonlinear Optimization (Bomze, Boţ, Neumaier)
• Optimization under Uncertainty and Risk (Alistarh, Bomze, Neumaier, Rudloff)
• Dynamic Optimization (Henzinger, Rudloff)
• Optimization for Data Analysis (Alistarh, Bomze, Boţ, Neumaier)
• Nonsmooth Optimization (Boţ)
• Multicriteria Optimization (Boţ, Rudloff)
• Parallel and Distributed Optimization (Alistarh, Henzinger)