Saarland Informatics Campus #SIC

Saarland Informatics Campus #SIC 1000 researchers, 2800 students, 5 renowned institutes & 24 academic programs - computer science at Saarland University
Impressum: https://bit.ly/484nGeh

Saarbrücken is an international research-oriented center for computer science. Researchers at Saarland University cooperate closely with the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), the Center for Bioinformatics and the Visual Computing Institute. These internationally renowned research insti

tutes are co-located on the Saarbrücken University Campus, neighbours to the Computer Science Department with its 19 chairs. All in all, more than 300 researchers in Computer Science have made their academic home in Saarbrücken. Many work on common projects funded by the German Government, the European Union or industrial partners. In October 2007, Saarbrücken Computer Science was awarded two major grants in the framework of the Initiative for Excellence of the German federal and state governments: the Cluster of Excellence on Multimodal Computing and Interaction and funding for the Saarbrücken Graduate School of Computer Science, which will help us continue to build and secure our international scientific and academic standing.

Let’s do the time warp again… Except it’s the in the 90s! ⏰Ever wondered just how much the campus has changed in the l...
07/09/2026

Let’s do the time warp again… Except it’s the in the 90s! ⏰

Ever wondered just how much the campus has changed in the last three decades? You’d be surprised at how little. If you ever wish to “go back to simpler times”, maybe you can just take a stroll around campus without your devices.

🧑‍🎓 The technologies and tools may have changed, but being a certainly has not. So once you’re done with all your deadlines, grab your friends, hit the Mensa, and enjoy being on campus— it is your oyster, after all.

We’d like to thank Saarland University Alumnus Christoph Schmitz for providing the photos.



Universität des Saarlandes - Saarland University The Max Planck Institute for Software Systems Fachschaft Informatikstudiengänge / CS Students' Representative Council UdS Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz

AI may hallucinate. These numbers don’t. Of the five ERC Starting Grants in computer science going to Germany this year,...
03/09/2026

AI may hallucinate. These numbers don’t.

Of the five ERC Starting Grants in computer science going to Germany this year, three are going to researchers at Saarland Informatics Campus. One of them is Michael Hahn, professor of computational linguistics in Saarland University’s Department of Language Science and Technology. In his new €1.5 million ERC-funded project REALM, he will investigate why language models fail at complex reasoning – and how these failures can be predicted and prevented. His goal: more reliable, efficient and trustworthy AI.

An Emmy Noether Research Group. The Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize. And now an ERC Starting Grant. Another major milestone for Michael Hahn – and part of a remarkable ERC result for Saarland Informatics Campus. And he is in excellent company: Yiting Xia and Thomas Leimkühler from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics have also secured ERC Starting Grants in the current round. In their projects, Xia will investigate how data center networks can be redesigned to meet the demands of AI workloads, while Leimkühler will explore how a single model can represent the visual world across scales, from entire landscapes to microscopic details.

Across Europe, only 22 computer science projects were selected. Five of them will be hosted in Germany. Three of those five are here at Saarland Informatics Campus. A record 4,807 proposals were submitted across all fields, with only 421 – just 8.8% – selected for funding. Together, the three new grants bring the total number of ERC Grants secured by researchers at Saarland Informatics Campus to 54. That is what scientific density looks like: outstanding people, institutions that reinforce one another and an environment in which ambitious research can thrive.

Congratulations to Michael Hahn, Yiting Xia and Thomas Leimkühler on this outstanding achievement!



Universität des Saarlandes - Saarland University Fachschaft Informatikstudiengänge / CS Students' Representative Council UdS The Max Planck Institute for Software Systems Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz

AI may hallucinate. These numbers don’t.Of the five ERC Starting Grants in computer science going to Germany this year, ...
03/09/2026

AI may hallucinate. These numbers don’t.
Of the five ERC Starting Grants in computer science going to Germany this year, three are going to researchers at Saarland Informatics Campus. One of them is Michael Hahn, professor of computational linguistics in Saarland University’s Department of Language Science and Technology. In his new €1.5 million ERC-funded project REALM, he will investigate why language models fail at complex reasoning – and how these failures can be predicted and prevented. His goal: more reliable, efficient and trustworthy AI.

An Emmy Noether Research Group. The Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize. And now an ERC Starting Grant. Another major milestone for Michael Hahn – and part of a remarkable ERC result for Saarland Informatics Campus. And he is in excellent company: Yiting Xia and Thomas Leimkühler from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics have also secured ERC Starting Grants in the current round. In their projects, Xia will investigate how data center networks can be redesigned to meet the demands of AI workloads, while Leimkühler will explore how a single model can represent the visual world across scales, from entire landscapes to microscopic details.

Across Europe, only 22 computer science projects were selected. Five of them will be hosted in Germany. Three of those five are here at Saarland Informatics Campus. A record 4,807 proposals were submitted across all fields, with only 421 – just 8.8% – selected for funding. Together, the three new grants bring the total number of ERC Grants secured by researchers at Saarland Informatics Campus to 54. That is what scientific density looks like: outstanding people, institutions that reinforce one another and an environment in which ambitious research can thrive.

Congratulations to Michael Hahn, Yiting Xia and Thomas Leimkühler on this outstanding achievement!



Universität des Saarlandes - Saarland University

📣 Looking to start a computer science related study programme this winter?Then the maths preparatory course might be jus...
26/08/2026

📣 Looking to start a computer science related study programme this winter?

Then the maths preparatory course might be just the thing for you. In this four-week course, you’ll build the mathematical foundations (including logic, proofs and set theory) for your upcoming studies and get to know some of your fellow students at social events.

📆 When? September 7 – October 2

🕑 Time: Monday to Friday, 9.00 am – 4.00 pm

🌍 Where? On campus in Saarbrücken

💰 Cost? Just €20 (including materials)

🔊 Language? Lectures and materials are in English. Tutorials are available in German or English.

🔗 Read more and register here: https://vorkurs.cs.uni-saarland.de/



Universität des Saarlandes - Saarland University The Max Planck Institute for Software Systems Fachschaft Informatikstudiengänge / CS Students' Representative Council UdS Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz

🏛️ Exam season has been busy for us all, including our professors: congratulations to Sven Apel and Andreas Zeller for b...
18/08/2026

🏛️ Exam season has been busy for us all, including our professors: congratulations to Sven Apel and Andreas Zeller for being selected into the first !

SIGSOFT Software Engineering Academy, launched by ACM this year, is an honor for researchers who made lasting contributions to software engineering.

Apel’s research revolves around developing tools for efficient, reliable and configurable software systems, while Zeller’s focus lies in automated software testing, debugging and repair. But these honors go beyond just lasting contributions— the Academy is all about individuals whose influence and leadership in the field have transformed software engineering. 💪 With two researchers on this year’s cohort, Saarland University is one of the few institutions with multiple researchers who were named.

So once you take Software Engineering or Automated Debugging at the , remember that you'll be getting a chance to learn from field leaders, who not only push their Git commits, but the also the boundaries of computer science. 💫

(No pressure, though. ☺️)



Universität des Saarlandes - Saarland University The Max Planck Institute for Software Systems Fachschaft Informatikstudiengänge / CS Students' Representative Council UdS Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz

💿 Digital music has never been this digital until The Night of the Fine Arts at The Commune, when students from the sh...
11/08/2026

💿 Digital music has never been this digital until The Night of the Fine Arts at The Commune, when students from the showcased the instruments they made from scratch!

As part of the Audio Devices: Synthesis, Control, & Performance seminar taught by Paul Strohmeier, senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, the students made their own electronic instruments.

They built custom hardware and programmed the instruments using audio synthesis and processing, embedded systems, sensors, and MIDI communication. The emphasis was on large-scale bodily action, so rather than pushing buttons, the instruments were played by body movements. They performed for the public on July 17, and art and technology became one for a night.

Who says computer science has to be done a certain way? With the diversity of fields on our campus, our researchers and students constantly find ways to combine computer science in other disciplines. Translation: here in Saarbrücken, creativity only fuels the fire. 🧑‍🎨🖥️

Our biggest applause to Paul Strohmeier and his students for a great show! 👏

Universität des Saarlandes - Saarland University Fachschaft Informatikstudiengänge / CS Students' Representative Council UdS The Max Planck Institute for Software Systems

👩‍💻How do you go from master’s to PhD to postdoc? Most postdocs would tell you it’s hard work, perseverance, and discipl...
07/08/2026

👩‍💻How do you go from master’s to PhD to postdoc? Most postdocs would tell you it’s hard work, perseverance, and discipline. According to Anna Kukleva, it’s those, plus a bunch of happy accidents.

Currently, Anna is a research scientist at Meta. Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher in the Computer Vision and Machine Learning department at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics (MPI-INF).

Upon completing her PhD in , she was awarded the for her thesis "Advancing Image and Video Recognition with Less Supervision," in which she explored how to get good results on unseen data with minimal labeling. 🏅

🎤 In this interview, Anna talks about her award-winning thesis, her life as a researcher at MPI-INF, her experience as a woman in computer vision, and her advice to aspiring computer scientists.

Thank you for sharing your story with the next generation of computer scientists, Anna! 👏

🔗 Read more: sic.link/kukleva

Universität des Saarlandes - Saarland University Fachschaft Informatikstudiengänge / CS Students' Representative Council UdS The Max Planck Institute for Software Systems Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz

📈 After ’s new model hacked into HuggingFace’s computer systems, AI safety concerns have skyrocketed.To address the con...
31/07/2026

📈 After ’s new model hacked into HuggingFace’s computer systems, AI safety concerns have skyrocketed.

To address the concerns, professor and German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence ( ) CEO Philipp Slusallek spoke to the Saarländischer Rundfunk (SR).

"We already knew AI became very good at attacking IT systems," Slusallek commented. "What’s new is the complexity of what happened: the fact that the AI escaped, replicated itself onto other computers on the internet, and launched attacks.”

The incident has been worrying, displaying that attacking a country or company has never been easier. So what is our line of defense here? 🛡️

“Trustworthy AI, the question of how we can give guarantees about the AI systems' behavior,” answered Slusallek. “This has long been a key research area here at the Saarland Informatics Campus, together with the Max Planck Institutes and the DFKI.”

The DFKI advocates for Europe to develop its own AI solutions, rather than depend on American or Chinese models. Accepting the challenge, they have been developing , an AI model, with other partnering institutions.

Set to release in the upcoming weeks, Soofi is a leap forward — leaving the grounds of to demonstrate that Europe already has the expertise to compete. 🏃

We'd like to thank Philipp Slusallek for informing the public on the importance of AI safety. 🙏

🔗 Read SR's coverage of the events here: sic.link/interview



Universität des Saarlandes - Saarland University Fachschaft Informatikstudiengänge / CS Students' Representative Council UdS The Max Planck Institute for Software Systems Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz

Computers are binary — 0, 1, 0, 1. So do programmers also think binary while looking at code? Not exactly, according to ...
24/07/2026

Computers are binary — 0, 1, 0, 1. So do programmers also think binary while looking at code? Not exactly, according to a recent study at Saarland University.

computer scientists Sven Apel and Vera Demberg worked together with psychologist Axel Mecklinger to see how the brain responds when programmers come across confusing code. They used eye-tracking technology and measured participants’ brain activity while they focused on a coding block. 🧠

📖 What they found was surprising: when the programmers came across something confusing, their brain activity carried similarities to that of people reading sentences with plot twists.

The team believes that understanding programmers' cognitive processes will help researchers develop better tools for them.

Software evolves because 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬 develop it. Tools that develop the programmers, however, require a more multidisciplinary approach. By extending the borders of software research, aims to make programmers’ everyday lives easier by exploring how they think.

🔗 Read more: sic.link/softwareeeg



Universität des Saarlandes - Saarland University The Max Planck Institute for Software Systems Fachschaft Informatikstudiengänge / CS Students' Representative Council UdS Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz

Quantum computers can solve complex problems classical computers can’t. Every day, more of them get deployed globally, i...
21/07/2026

Quantum computers can solve complex problems classical computers can’t. Every day, more of them get deployed globally, increasing demand in the field. But how do you program a quantum computer? Willing to find out?

Then the new master’s program at is for you: Quantum Information Theory (QIT)! Combining theoretical physics, mathematics and computer science, the program is directly connected to the Center for Quantum Technologies on campus. QIT approaches the field mathematically and computationally, with its main focus on quantum software — making it distinct in Germany.

The good news is? You don’t have to know anything about quantum physics. The program aims to give you the knowledge you need during your studies, so you can simply focus on developing new algorithms and software in the quantum dimension.

Graduates have career opportunities in fields such as:

- R&D

- Quantum computing & software development

- IT & Cybersecurity

- High performance computing

- Data analysis

Deadline for applications is August 31, 2026.

Find out more/apply: sic.link/qit

Universität des Saarlandes - Saarland University Fachschaft Informatikstudiengänge / CS Students' Representative Council UdS The Max Planck Institute for Software Systems Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz

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