Main focus areas

The activity at CMA has been through a thorough evaluation process following the first four years of existence as a Centre of Excellence. Both CMA’s Scientific Advisory Board and a number of unknown referees appointed by the Research Council of Norway have given valuable feedback and have made suggestions for improvements. The revised research plan presented in this document is a result of this process.

During the second five year period we will, in particular, focus on the following issues:

• Strengthen CMA as an international research centre in mathematics for applications, in which the participants do first rate research in geometry, stochastic analysis, differential equations, and applications in physical sciences, and encourage all participants to bridge scientific borders when utilizing each other’s competence.
• Develop further the activity in geometric modelling based on a combination of mesh based modelling, algebraic methods and differential equation methods, and strengthen the link to applications in medicine.
• Maintain the stochastic analysis group as a leading international research group in mathematical finance, and to increase the activity in other areas of applications like electricity markets and insurance mathematics.
• Strengthen the basic activity in mathematical and numerical analysis of partial differential equations, and use this foundation as a basis for increased focus on industrial projects and on scientific problems arising outside mathematics.
• Stimulate further the ongoing interdisciplinary activity engaged in developing new numerical schemes for radiation magneto-hydrodynamics, as motivated from the modelling of the outer solar atmosphere.
• Develop further a research group at the interface between computational mathematics and quantum mechanics, in order to construct improved codes to study nuclear many-body problems.
• Continue: to organize workshops and conferences focusing on the various parts of the research plan, to invite guests, both prominent international experts and promising young research talents, and to send our own researchers out to present their and CMA’s recent results and achievements
• Strengthen and extend the cooperation with SINTEF ICT. The aim is to bridge the gap between recent results in basic research and their potential use in technological innovations. We also hope to expose essential new research directions in close collaboration with other industry partners, for example with the finance industry, the oil and gas industry, the medical industry, and others.
• Seek new opportunities to extend our international network, both by partnerships with relevant institutions, as well as through joint proposals for EU- and other international funding
• Maintain a well-functioning national Research School in mathematics for applications, where a number of PhD and postdoc fellows work with related problems in a stimulating environment.
• Continue to provide a top quality scientific environment for the teaching project “Computers in Science Education.” The existence of cross disciplinary research at CMA has made it possible to believe that similar achievements in teaching are possible. The CSE has already proven itself as an internationally recognized innovator for rethinking the teaching of modern computational mathematics at all levels, especially at the undergraduate level (Bachelor degree courses.)
• Prepare to continue these vigorous research efforts after the funding from the Research Council has ended.