Examples of Long-Term Science-Industry Partnerships for Translational Computer Science

Although not labeled as such, the three research centers presented in this article have been performing translational computer science (TCS) for more than 20 years. SBA Research, Software Competence Center Hagenberg, and VRVis Zentrum fuer Virtual Reality und Visualisierung, all funded by the Austrian COMET Competence Centers for Excellent Technologies program, each selected one science–industry partnership to exemplify how they do TCS in their day-to-day work. We show how the COMET funding program provides a framework for establishing long-term research relationships with industry, thus facilitating TCS: research done by the COMET centers is directly put in the practical context of the industry partners, and successes and failures are immediately reported back. This constant feedback loop positively impacts the know-how at the involved companies, while allowing the computer scientists to continuously test, improve, and publish their research based on real-world scenarios.