Geilo Winter Schools in eScience

SINTEF has organized an annual winter school in Geilo since 2001, on different topics within eScience and computational mathematics. The schools have been funded by the Research Council of Norway, and have provided hundreds of lectures on topics relevant to the Norwegian eScience community, ranging from parallel computing and Big Data to Monte Carlo simulations and continuum mechanics. The first fifteen winter schools have attracted over 800 participants from industry, research, and academic institutions in Norway, Scandinavia, and the world. The schools will continue for the period 2021 - 2025 under project number 311829.

The purpose of the winter school is to establish an annual meeting place where young researchers can get updated on new ideas, methods and theories within the eScience feld and collaborate and exchange ideas and experience. Each winter school consists of a series of 24-30 lectures (45 minutes each) and lasts from Sunday afternoon to Friday lunch. The lectures will focus on advanced methods and theories in computational mathematics, statistics, and/or computer science that are relevant to a wide range of applications of national interest. A new topic is chosen each year by a scientic committee.

The winter schools are held at Dr. Holms Hotel, a distinguished hotel from 1909 located right next to the ski slopes in Geilo. Geilo is renowned as one of the best winter sports resorts in Northern Europe, located in the mountains between Oslo and Bergen (approximately 4 hours by train from each city). Geilo lies at an altitude of 800 meters with its highest alpine slope starting at 1178 meters above sea level. This ensures good snow conditions throughout the winter. Geilo offers 35 varied and well groomed downhill slopes and 18 lifts with a capacity of 22000 persons pr. hour. Moreover, there are excellent possibilities for cross country, with approximately 500 km of trails, both in the valley and in the mountains.

Practical organization

From 2021 the practical organization of the school will be handled by a committee, consisting of Torkel A. Haufmann, Øystein Klemetsdal, Signe Riemer-Sørensen, all at SINTEF. 

From 2001-2011 the schools were organized by Knut-Andreas Lie, Chief Scientist at SINTEF. André R. Brodtkorb, Research Scientist, took over, organizing from 2011-2020 (in 2020 along with Torkel A. Haufmann, Øystein Klemetsdal and Signe Riemer-Sørensen).

2021-2025

Through the period 2021-2025 the schools are funded by the Norwegian Research Council under project number 311829. The schools are supported by a scientific committee that, in collaboration with the organizing committee, determines the topic and content for the schools in the project period. The scientific committee consists of:

• Inga Berre, University of Bergen
• André R. Brodtkorb, Oslo Metropolitan University
• Xing Cai, Simula / University of Oslo
• Anne C. Elster, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
• Johan Hoffman, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
• Knut Andreas Lie, SINTEF
• Anders Løland, Norwegian Computing Center
• Hans Ekkehard Plesser, Norwegian University of Life Sciences
• Geir Storvik, University of Oslo

A short bio of each member can be found on the Scientific committee page.

2016-2020

The schools were organized for the period 2016 - 2020 under project number 249772. The scientific committee for the 2016-2020 winter school series consists of

• Inga Berre, University of Bergen
• Xing Cai, Simula / University of Oslo
• Anne Elster, NTNU
• Margot Gerritsen, Stanford
• Helwig Hauser, UiB
• Trond Kvamsdal, NTNU / SINTEF
• Knut-Andreas Lie, SINTEF / NTNU
• Hans Ekkehardt Plesser, NMBU
• Geir Storvik, UiO
• Ståle Walderhaug, SINTEF

The scientific committee, in collaboration with the project manager, determines the topic and content for the five schools in the project period. 

2011 - 2015: eVita Winter School

SINTEF organized five annual winter schools in the period 2011-2015 under project number 203376. Each winter school took place at Dr. Holms Hotel in the fourth week of January, and followed the format of the first six winter schools. The schools were primarily aimed at graduate, doctoral, and postdoctoral students, but are also open for advanced undergraduate students and senior researchers. The purpose of the series is to establish an annual meeting place where young researchers can get updated on new ideas, methods and theories within the eScience field and collaborate and exchange ideas and experience.

Each winter school will consist of a series of 24-30 lectures (45 minutes each) and last from Sunday afternoon to Friday lunch. The lectures will focus on advanced methods and theories in computational mathematics, statistics, and/or computer science that are relevant to a wide range of applications of national interest. A new topic will be chosen each year by a scientific committee.

The daily schedule is as follows:

• On Sunday afternoon, we start by giving 2-4 introductory lectures.
• The next four days, there will be two lectures in the morning and four in the afternoon, with a long break in the middle of the day to enable skiing or other sports/outdoor/scienti c activities.
• On Friday, there will be 2-4 lectures before lunch.

All participants eat dinner together in the evening all days except Friday. The weather conditions are normally quite good at Geilo at the end of January, and there will be ample opportunities for outdoor activities (skiing) during the mid-day breaks.

2007 - 2010: National Arena in eScience

To foster collaboration between researchers in eScience, the  Research Council of Norway has established an annual meeting series as part of the eVITA programme (project number 178774). The purpose of the meeting series is to establish a national meeting place where researchers can get updated on new ideas, methods, and theories within the eScience field and collaborate and exchange ideas and experience.

The annual meetings in the period 2007-2010 consisted of two parts:

• A two-day scientific meeting  for  researchers connected to  eVITA  and prospective applicants to the program, but also open for participants from universities, research institutions, government and industry who are interested in getting to know new results, theories and methods from the the eVITA program and eScience in general.
• A winter school for  young researchers within the eSciences. Although the schools were primarily aimed at graduate, doctoral, and postdoctoral students,  advanced undergraduate students and senior researchers have also been heartly welcome. The focus of the winter schools has been on new methods and theories within mathematics, statistics and computer science, but with an eye to applications of national interest.
• In addition, the program board of eVITA has held some of its meetings in connection with the scientific meeting.

'National Arena in eScience'  was run by SINTEF as a separate project under the eVITA program. SINTEF was responsible for organizing the meetings, but the scientific program is decided by a national program committee. 

Scientific Committee:

The program board in eVITA appointed a scientific committee for a "National Meeting Series in eScience". The mandate of the committee was to plan and follow up the scientific contents in the meeting series. The Scientific Committee consisted of the following:

In the years 2007-2010, the eVITA programme organized a set of annual scientific meetings in conjunction with the winter school. The meetings followed the tradition established in the BeMatA program. The purpose of the meetings has been to present information and scientific results from the eVITA program and to foster interaction and collaboration among researchers in the eScience field, including prospective applications to eVITA, in particular. In addition, a few invited lecturer will provide insight into new hot topics or give overviews over existing fields within eScience: infrastructure, theory, and applications.

• First meeting, 29-30 January 2007
• Second meeting, 21-22 January 2008
• Third meeing, 27-29 January 2010

2001 - 2006: Winter Schools in Computational Mathematics

Winter schools in computational mathematics started as a four-year project (2001-2004) funded by the Research Council of Norway under grant number 137461/431 and was continued as a two-year project (2005-2006) under grant number 159868/V30. 

The aim of the project was to organise a series of annual winter school with different topics in modern computational methods with special emphasis on partial differential equations and high performance computing. The schools lasted one week and were aimed at graduate/doctoral students and researchers at universities, research institutes, or in industry. Advanced undergraduate students were also welcome.

The winter schools were held at Geilo - a popular Norwegian ski resort. An important aspect of the winter schools was to enable the participants to make new contacts with other researchers. The atmosphere of the winter schools has therefore been informal, with room in the programme for skiing and other social activities.