Doctoral Centre Applied Informatics

The days when h_da students could only earn their doctoral degrees at a traditional university or in cooperation with one are over. In 2018, the inter-university Doctoral Centre for Applied Computer Science (PZAI) at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences (h_da) opened its doors – the first of its kind in the State of Hesse. Since then, over 125 doctoral candidates have been accepted, 27 of whom have already successfully defended their dissertations. This makes Darmstadt and Hesse a role model for other federal states in many ways, says Bernhard Humm, computer science professor and one of the centre’s directors.

By Astrid Ludwig, 23.4.2025

Darmstadt attracts many an applicant from further afield. It seems that no distance is too far if you have the chance to do a doctorate with the professor of your choice. In this case, with the team led by Christoph Busch, Professor of Biometrics at h_da’s Faculty of Computer Science and an internationally renowned expert in cybersecurity: Dailé Osorio-Roig and Lázaro Janier González-Soler, two researchers from Cuba, eagerly followed Busch’s call to Darmstadt and earned their doctoral degrees in 2022 and 2024 at the Doctoral Centre for Applied Computer Science (PZAI). Around ten percent of doctoral students come from abroad, reports Bernhard Humm, professor at the Faculty of Computer Science and the centre’s director.

The Doctoral Centre for Applied Computer Science (PZAI) is a joint institution of the Darmstadt, Fulda, Rhine-Main and Frankfurt universities of applied sciences. Since the centre, which is hosted by h_da, began work seven years ago, not only has the number of applications from students wishing to pursue a doctoral degree risen continuously but also the number of professors wanting to join one of the teams of supervisors. At the present time, 45 professors and over 125 doctoral students are members of the doctoral centre. “We receive new applications all the time,” says Humm, delighted at the centre’s success. “We have seen an upward curve since the very first day. It’s clear that the centre is continuing to grow.”

Hesse is currently home to seven doctoral centres in different subject areas, three of which are inter-university: in addition to the Doctoral Centre for Applied Computer Science there are the centres for “Public Health” and “Social Sciences with a focus on Globalization, European Integration and Interculturality” at Fulda University of Applied Sciences and the inter-university doctoral centres “Social Work”, “Mobility and Logistics” and “Applied Informatics”. The Doctoral Centre Sustainability Sciences was established at h_da in 2019.

The road was by all means rocky, reports Humm. In 2016, Hesse was the first federal state to award its universities of applied sciences the right to confer doctoral degrees. A decision that met with considerable resistance from traditional universities, which previously had the exclusive right and now feared a decline in quality. Concerns that Bernhard Humm cannot comprehend. “We have already gathered over three decades of experience in cooperative doctoral procedures – for example with the University of Plymouth, Cork Institute of Technology and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.” That also means experience with doctoral regulations in other countries, as Bernhard Humm, who himself completed his doctoral degree at the University of Wollongong in Australia, is keen to highlight. During this time, around 30 doctoral degrees have been awarded to computer science students from h_da. “Our doctoral candidates are internationally acknowledged, successful and have won prizes,” says Humm.

The Doctoral Centre for Applied Computer Science was established at the end of 2017 as the first inter-university doctoral centre in Hesse and began its work in early 2018. What has made it special from the outset is that the research work conducted there focuses consistently on real-world applications. “Our doctoral students and supervisors have a far closer relationship with the business community than traditional universities generally do. That makes a big difference,” explains Humm. He is convinced: “We fill a blank spot on the research map and that is why the Doctoral Centre for Applied Computer Science is so much in demand.” From the business community, but also from applicants.

It was h_da that took the lead in setting up the Doctoral Centre for Applied Computer Science, as it is the largest partner university in the field of applied informatics – with over 50 professors and around 2,000 students at the Faculty of Computer Science alone. It is also primarily h_da graduates who apply for admission. But perhaps the centre also arouses such great interest because its doctoral regulations are completely different from those common in Germany, where doctoral candidates usually have a supervisor who is also their employer and the reviewer of their doctoral dissertation. “This creates dependencies that can also have a negative effect,” thinks Humm. At the Doctoral Centre for Applied Computer Science, candidates are instead supervised by a team of several professors. This makes it easier to cushion the departure, change or absence of a supervisor. In addition, supervision and review of the doctoral dissertation are kept strictly separate in terms of staff. “This is less biased,” says Humm.

Also structured differently are the application and doctoral procedures themselves. Anyone wanting to pursue a doctoral degree must first apply for admission to the centre with an exposé describing their topic and research questions, which are then assessed by reviewers on the basis of merit. Once they have overcome this first hurdle and found a team of supervisors for their research project, doctoral candidates must submit an interim report after 18 months and present the status of their scientific work. “We are not trying to make life difficult but instead offering constructive support. We want to help our doctoral candidates,” stresses Humm. It sometimes becomes apparent, he says, that a doctoral student needs to explore certain aspects of their topic in greater depth and that a change in or addition to the team of supervisors might make sense until the dissertation is completed after a maximum of five years. Humm calls these the centre’s three milestones. “It’s a complex process, also for us supervisors, but we want our doctoral students to be successful and properly prepared for the external review at the end.” An approach that has so far worked very well.

This procedure is still rare in the German education system. In Hesse, however, all seven centres work according to these doctoral regulations. “That is why many federal states are looking very closely at Hesse and at us,” says Humm. He is convinced that these ideas will catch on. Not least because h_da and the Doctoral Centre for Applied Computer Science have a successful track record. Of the 125 doctoral candidates so far, 27 have successfully completed and defended their dissertations. Since 2018, 14 have dropped out. “This is perfectly normal and often due to family circumstances or because the time involved becomes too overwhelming.” Around 20 percent of doctoral students are women. “That’s the average in computer science, even if it’s disappointing,” he says.

Since the centre was established, three main themes have crystallised in its students’ doctoral dissertations – or three “Special Interest Groups”, as Humm calls them. These are, firstly, projects related to artificial intelligence. “There is hardly any work underway in informatics research right now that doesn’t include AI,” says Humm. The other main areas are the human/computer interaction, e.g. with virtual or augmented reality, and, of course, infrastructure topics, i.e. doctoral projects that deal with hardware, networks or cybersecurity. The centre also allows scope for interdisciplinary research topics, such as from biology or medicine. For example, a doctoral student is currently working on a project that uses AI methods to classify wild animals – for instance in Africa – on the basis of photographs. She wants to develop a system that recognises even from night shots which individual animal it is. “It would then no longer be necessary to chip the animals in order to track their movements,” says Humm, naming one of the advantages. This would also make it possible to document animal populations more accurately. Another doctoral candidate is using AI and cameras to examine the composition, structure and social life of ant colonies.

The researchers hoping to call themselves “Doctor” in the near future also deal with problems from industry, such as fault analysis of robots in smart factories. And, of course, with the classic issues of cybersecurity. Biometric systems such as facial recognition for authentication are now in everyday use, whether to unlock your smartphone via Face ID or to identify yourself at border controls. Today, modern systems provide a high level of biometric accuracy, but they are also the target of attacks and manipulation again and again, which makes them a security risk. A young Norwegian at the Doctoral Centre for Applied Computer Science explored new approaches to reducing this risk in his doctoral dissertation. He examined the more detailed effects of various types of digital and physical manipulation on facial recognition systems and proposed new algorithms for detecting such attacks. His dissertation was the first at the centre to be awarded the highest distinction “summa cum laude”, reports Humm.

The State of Hesse initially limited the universities of applied sciences’ right to confer doctoral degrees at their centres to five years, which is why the Doctoral Centre for Applied Computer Science was evaluated by a high-ranking commission led by Professor Matthias Kleiner, former president of the German Research Foundation (DFG). The evaluation was extremely positive and led to the successful removal of the 5-year limit in 2022. “We were under very close observation,” says Humm.

Having further developed the statutes and the doctoral regulations, the centre’s reward is greater autonomy. Today, the professorial members of the centre are appointed by a supervisory committee composed of representatives from the executive boards of the participating universities. Previously, the decision lay at ministerial level. In Bernhard Humm’s opinion, the Doctoral Centre for Applied Computer Science is continuing along its successful path and has a clear goal in sight for the future: he and his fellow campaigners want to establish a culture for applied research, where the focus is more on content and benefit for society than on number of citations or publications.