IDIAP Research Institute
Encyclopedia
The Idiap Research Institute, based in Martigny (Valais
, Switzerland), is an autonomous, independent, non-profit research foundation specialised in the management of multimedia information and man-machine multimodal interactions. The institute was founded in 1991 by the Municipality of Martigny, the State of Valais
, EPFL (Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
), the University of Geneva
and Swisscom
. The Idiap Research Institute is accredited by the State and Federal Governments, and is connected to EPFL by a joint development plan (LIDIAP is the EPFL laboratory of the Idiap Research Institute).
The Idiap Research Institute's budget, which amounts to more than 9 million Swiss francs, is 60% financed by research projects awarded following competitive processes, and 40% by public funds.
Whereas it only employed around thirty people in 2001, in 2011 Idiap had around one hundred employees, including 80 researchers (senior researchers, researchers, postdoctoral students and PhD students). All the personnel work at Centre du Parc in Martigny, in the west wing. The institute moved there in August 2007. It now occupies 2,600 m2 of premises over four floors.
The Idiap Research Institute is also the Leading House of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) on Interactive Multimodal Information Management (IM)2
.
, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland
, in the south-west of the country. In the heart of the Alps
, Valais
has an exceptional landscape and a pleasant microclimate, which makes it a very popular tourist destination and a very sought-after place to live.
Martigny is a town of approximately 15,000 inhabitants and is situated close to Montreux
, Lausanne
and Lake Léman. The Geneva airport is 90 minutes away by train.
Scientific activities
) and initially referred to as “Institut Dalle Molle d’Intelligence Artificielle Perceptive” (Dalle Molle Institute for Perceptual Artificial Intelligence), was founded in 1991 by the Dalle Molle Foundation for the Quality of Life, the Municipality of Martigny, the Canton of Valais
, the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
(EPFL), the University of Geneva
and Swisscom
as the third of three independent non-profit research institutes in Switzerland:
Legally, its status as a foundation guarantees it great autonomy and gives it access to public scientific research financing while positioning it as a neutral and credible intermediary between the academic world and industry.
As its inception the Idiap Research Institute consisted of about 10 people active mainly in the field of speech recognition. A first phase of development in 1996 saw the planned withdrawal of the Dalle Molle Foundation and the arrival of the current director, Hervé Bourlard, employed at the time by an institute in Berkeley, California
. After having celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2001 with the granting of the National Centre of Competence in Research for Interactive Multimodal Information Management (IM)2
, the years 2002 to 2004 were marked by very strong growth exemplified by the construction of a second building. A period of consolidation, in terms of personnel, infrastructure, and financing, has followed. Fifteen years after its beginnings, the Idiap Research Institute had approximately 100 employees, 85 of whom are researchers representing 23 nationalities, and among them several from the far corners of the world.
building and the whole of the Pavillon Dalle Molle. “This geographical dispersion was preventing social links being formed within the institute and was therefore harming the dynamics of various groups and projects” explains Jean-Albert Ferrez.
The Mayor of Martigny and President of the Idiap Foundation Council, Olivier Dumas, was aware of this problem of lack of space, and got in touch with Groupe Mutuel in Spring 2007. At this time the insurer was completing the construction of its new administrative premises in the town centre, therefore freeing up those that it was occupying, and which it owns, at Centre du Parc. Very quickly the institute’s management weighed up the advantages of a possible move. The premises can be used in their current condition, needing only some minor work, including the installation of a specific cooling system in the computer server’s room. The rented area can easily accommodate 120 people and there are many ways in which the building could be extended. The increase in support from the city of Martigny and sponsoring by Groupe Mutuel were the final incentives in convincing the institute to take the move. In August 2007, the institute moved all of its employees and activities to Centre du Parc, in the “conference” part of the building. To accompany this change of location and to symbolically mark the start of a new era, the institute has also given itself a new logo.
Pascal Couchepin
, the Federal Department of Home Affairs (FDHA) announced that it was quadrupling its support to the Idiap Research Institute for the next four years (CHF 6.5 million for 2008–2011). In the institute's budget, ~75% of the resources come from projects, and only ~25% from institutional support. With this subsidy granted by the State Secretariat for Education and Research (SER), the institute will be able to establish a solid financial basis.
This support was accompanied by two major conditions, granting by the Canton of Valais
and the Municipality of Martigny of at least an equivalent amount for the same period, and consolidation of the partnership with the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
(EPFL) to better integrate the institute in the Swiss academic scene and offer it security for the future. The joint development plan for the 2008–2011 was signed on July 2008. The plan in question aims to further improve the integration and supervision of Idiap PhD students, increase the academic visibility of the researchers and step up exchanges between scientists from the two institutions.
In 2008, as part of the development plan signed with EPFL, the institute started to revise its organization chart, which should be completed in 2009. The scientific and administrative structures will be fleshed out, the management will include new scientific members, some of the senior researchers will benefit from EPFL academic recognition and the director will be supported by an assistant.
Valais
The Valais is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland in the southwestern part of the country, around the valley of the Rhône from its headwaters to Lake Geneva, separating the Pennine Alps from the Bernese Alps. The canton is one of the drier parts of Switzerland in its central Rhône valley...
, Switzerland), is an autonomous, independent, non-profit research foundation specialised in the management of multimedia information and man-machine multimodal interactions. The institute was founded in 1991 by the Municipality of Martigny, the State of Valais
Valais
The Valais is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland in the southwestern part of the country, around the valley of the Rhône from its headwaters to Lake Geneva, separating the Pennine Alps from the Bernese Alps. The canton is one of the drier parts of Switzerland in its central Rhône valley...
, EPFL (Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
The École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology and is located in Lausanne, Switzerland.The school was founded by the Swiss Federal Government with the stated mission to:...
), the University of Geneva
University of Geneva
The University of Geneva is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland.It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin, as a theological seminary and law school. It remained focused on theology until the 17th century, when it became a center for Enlightenment scholarship. In 1873, it...
and Swisscom
Swisscom
Swisscom AG is a major telecommunications provider in Switzerland. Along with Swiss Post, it is a successor company to the former state-owned PTT. Its headquarters are located at Worblaufen near Bern...
. The Idiap Research Institute is accredited by the State and Federal Governments, and is connected to EPFL by a joint development plan (LIDIAP is the EPFL laboratory of the Idiap Research Institute).
The Idiap Research Institute's budget, which amounts to more than 9 million Swiss francs, is 60% financed by research projects awarded following competitive processes, and 40% by public funds.
Whereas it only employed around thirty people in 2001, in 2011 Idiap had around one hundred employees, including 80 researchers (senior researchers, researchers, postdoctoral students and PhD students). All the personnel work at Centre du Parc in Martigny, in the west wing. The institute moved there in August 2007. It now occupies 2,600 m2 of premises over four floors.
The Idiap Research Institute is also the Leading House of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) on Interactive Multimodal Information Management (IM)2
Interactive Multimodal Information Management (IM)2
Interactive Multimodal Information Management is one the 20 Swiss National Centres of Competence in Research aiming at boosting research and development in several areas considered of strategic importance to the Swiss economy...
.
Research areas
Idiap's mains research areas are the following:
Perceptual and cognitive systems
speech processing; natural language understanding and translation; document and text processing; vision and scene analysis; multimodal processing; cognitive sciences
Social and human behaviour
web social media, mobile social media; social interaction sensing; social signal processing; verbal and non-verbal communication analysis
Information interfaces and presentation
multimedia information systems; user interfaces; system evaluation
Biometric user authentication
speaker identification and verification; face detection, identification and verification; multimodal biometric user authentication
Machine learning
statistical and neural network based machine learning; computational efficiency, targeting real-time applications; very large datasets
Geographical situation
The Idiap Research Institute is located in Martigny, one of the main towns of the Canton of ValaisValais
The Valais is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland in the southwestern part of the country, around the valley of the Rhône from its headwaters to Lake Geneva, separating the Pennine Alps from the Bernese Alps. The canton is one of the drier parts of Switzerland in its central Rhône valley...
, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, in the south-west of the country. In the heart of the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
, Valais
Valais
The Valais is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland in the southwestern part of the country, around the valley of the Rhône from its headwaters to Lake Geneva, separating the Pennine Alps from the Bernese Alps. The canton is one of the drier parts of Switzerland in its central Rhône valley...
has an exceptional landscape and a pleasant microclimate, which makes it a very popular tourist destination and a very sought-after place to live.
Martigny is a town of approximately 15,000 inhabitants and is situated close to Montreux
Montreux
Montreux is a municipality in the district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.It is located on Lake Geneva at the foot of the Alps and has a population, , of and nearly 90,000 in the agglomeration.- History :...
, Lausanne
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
and Lake Léman. The Geneva airport is 90 minutes away by train.
The Idiap Research Institute in figures
Human resources
14 permanent researchers
11 postdoctoral researchers
29 PhD students
9 development engineers
6 system engineers
20 interns and visitors per year
6 doctorates awarded
30 positions in start-ups on the IdeArk site
9 administrative employees
25 nationalities represented
Scientific activities
IM2 National Centre of Competence in Research (Interactive Multimodal Information Management) since 2001.
Participation in 37 research programmes
Project management of 5 consortiums
Participation in the economic development strategy of the Canton of Valais through The Ark programme and in particular the IdeArk company
133 scientific publications
Organisation of a number of international conferences
History
The Idiap Research Institute, located in Martigny (SwitzerlandSwitzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
) and initially referred to as “Institut Dalle Molle d’Intelligence Artificielle Perceptive” (Dalle Molle Institute for Perceptual Artificial Intelligence), was founded in 1991 by the Dalle Molle Foundation for the Quality of Life, the Municipality of Martigny, the Canton of Valais
Valais
The Valais is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland in the southwestern part of the country, around the valley of the Rhône from its headwaters to Lake Geneva, separating the Pennine Alps from the Bernese Alps. The canton is one of the drier parts of Switzerland in its central Rhône valley...
, the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
The École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology and is located in Lausanne, Switzerland.The school was founded by the Swiss Federal Government with the stated mission to:...
(EPFL), the University of Geneva
University of Geneva
The University of Geneva is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland.It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin, as a theological seminary and law school. It remained focused on theology until the 17th century, when it became a center for Enlightenment scholarship. In 1873, it...
and Swisscom
Swisscom
Swisscom AG is a major telecommunications provider in Switzerland. Along with Swiss Post, it is a successor company to the former state-owned PTT. Its headquarters are located at Worblaufen near Bern...
as the third of three independent non-profit research institutes in Switzerland:
| ISSCO, Geneva | IDSIA, Lugano | IDIAP, Martigny |
|---|---|---|
| (1973: Linguistic AI) | (1988: Cognitive AI) | (1991: Perceptual AI) |
Legally, its status as a foundation guarantees it great autonomy and gives it access to public scientific research financing while positioning it as a neutral and credible intermediary between the academic world and industry.
As its inception the Idiap Research Institute consisted of about 10 people active mainly in the field of speech recognition. A first phase of development in 1996 saw the planned withdrawal of the Dalle Molle Foundation and the arrival of the current director, Hervé Bourlard, employed at the time by an institute in Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
. After having celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2001 with the granting of the National Centre of Competence in Research for Interactive Multimodal Information Management (IM)2
Interactive Multimodal Information Management (IM)2
Interactive Multimodal Information Management is one the 20 Swiss National Centres of Competence in Research aiming at boosting research and development in several areas considered of strategic importance to the Swiss economy...
, the years 2002 to 2004 were marked by very strong growth exemplified by the construction of a second building. A period of consolidation, in terms of personnel, infrastructure, and financing, has followed. Fifteen years after its beginnings, the Idiap Research Institute had approximately 100 employees, 85 of whom are researchers representing 23 nationalities, and among them several from the far corners of the world.
Relocation to Centre du Parc
“The current premises no longer meet our growing needs for more space.” It is in these words that Jean-Albert Ferrez, Deputy Director of the Idiap Research Institute, started his announcement about the institute’s move to the journalists at the press conference organised on 30 May 2007 at Centre du Parc. In 1991, when it was founded, the institute accommodated its 10 employees on one floor of Villa Tissières. By spring 2007, the number of employees had increased to around one hundred and occupied two floors of the villa, one floor of the UBSUBS AG
UBS AG is a Swiss global financial services company headquartered in Basel and Zürich, Switzerland, which provides investment banking, asset management, and wealth management services for private, corporate, and institutional clients worldwide, as well as retail clients in Switzerland...
building and the whole of the Pavillon Dalle Molle. “This geographical dispersion was preventing social links being formed within the institute and was therefore harming the dynamics of various groups and projects” explains Jean-Albert Ferrez.
The Mayor of Martigny and President of the Idiap Foundation Council, Olivier Dumas, was aware of this problem of lack of space, and got in touch with Groupe Mutuel in Spring 2007. At this time the insurer was completing the construction of its new administrative premises in the town centre, therefore freeing up those that it was occupying, and which it owns, at Centre du Parc. Very quickly the institute’s management weighed up the advantages of a possible move. The premises can be used in their current condition, needing only some minor work, including the installation of a specific cooling system in the computer server’s room. The rented area can easily accommodate 120 people and there are many ways in which the building could be extended. The increase in support from the city of Martigny and sponsoring by Groupe Mutuel were the final incentives in convincing the institute to take the move. In August 2007, the institute moved all of its employees and activities to Centre du Parc, in the “conference” part of the building. To accompany this change of location and to symbolically mark the start of a new era, the institute has also given itself a new logo.
Idiap Research Institute and EPFL sign a joint development plan
In February 2008, through Federal CouncillorSwiss Federal Council
The Federal Council is the seven-member executive council which constitutes the federal government of Switzerland and serves as the Swiss collective head of state....
Pascal Couchepin
Pascal Couchepin
Pascal Couchepin is a Swiss politician, former member of the Swiss Federal Council and President of the Confederation in 2003 and 2008...
, the Federal Department of Home Affairs (FDHA) announced that it was quadrupling its support to the Idiap Research Institute for the next four years (CHF 6.5 million for 2008–2011). In the institute's budget, ~75% of the resources come from projects, and only ~25% from institutional support. With this subsidy granted by the State Secretariat for Education and Research (SER), the institute will be able to establish a solid financial basis.
This support was accompanied by two major conditions, granting by the Canton of Valais
Valais
The Valais is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland in the southwestern part of the country, around the valley of the Rhône from its headwaters to Lake Geneva, separating the Pennine Alps from the Bernese Alps. The canton is one of the drier parts of Switzerland in its central Rhône valley...
and the Municipality of Martigny of at least an equivalent amount for the same period, and consolidation of the partnership with the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
The École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology and is located in Lausanne, Switzerland.The school was founded by the Swiss Federal Government with the stated mission to:...
(EPFL) to better integrate the institute in the Swiss academic scene and offer it security for the future. The joint development plan for the 2008–2011 was signed on July 2008. The plan in question aims to further improve the integration and supervision of Idiap PhD students, increase the academic visibility of the researchers and step up exchanges between scientists from the two institutions.
In 2008, as part of the development plan signed with EPFL, the institute started to revise its organization chart, which should be completed in 2009. The scientific and administrative structures will be fleshed out, the management will include new scientific members, some of the senior researchers will benefit from EPFL academic recognition and the director will be supported by an assistant.