Title: About CWI
Date: 2014-12-05 10:20
Slug: about
Authors: M.A. Guravage

# About Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI)

CWI is the national research institute for mathematics and computer
science in the Netherlands and is an institute of the Netherlands
Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The institute was founded
in 1946 and is located at Science Park Amsterdam. The institute has a
strong international position and is renowned for its high quality
research. CWI's strength lies in the discovery and development of new
ideas, and the transfer of knowledge to other scientific areas,
society at large and trade and industry in particular. Research of CWI
is applied for instance in payment systems, cryptography,
telecommunications, public transport, smart energy networks and
meteorology.

# An international network

With 55 permanent research staff, 40 postdocs and 70 PhD students, CWI
is a compact institute that lies at the heart of European research in
mathematics and computer science. Much of its research is conducted as
part of national and international programmes. CWI maintains close
contacts with the industry and academic world, both in the Netherlands
and abroad. More than half of its permanent research staff is also
associated with universities as part-time professors. This research
network strengthens CWI’s reputation, acting as a magnet in attracting
academic talent. The postdocs and PhD students originate from more
than 25 different countries.

# A source of pride

CWI was the birthplace of the European internet and registered one of
the first country domains in the world, the NL top level domain
‘.nl’. CWI helped developing of the wing for the Fokker Friendship
aircraft and was home tot the invention of the popular programming
language Python. CWI also applied its research in combinatorial
algorithmics to improve the design of the Dutch train
timetables. Recent highlights include breaking the MD5 internet
security system and research into smart grids to secure our future
energy supply.


[CWI Annual Report]({filename}../private/annual-report.pdf)