From the start in 1988 until the end of 2010, CBA was an independent entity belonging equally to Uppsala University (UU) and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), administered through UU. After decisions by the host universities this was changed and from 2011 the UU part of CBA became a division within the Dept. of Information Technology. Within the Dept. of IT, there was a review of the division structure, so, in 2012, CBA and the previous Division for Human-Computer Interaction joined to become the Division for Visual Information and Interaction (Vi2). Ingela Nyström is head of Vi2 and also head of CBA. At SLU, the Dept. of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology has been host department during the last years.
During 2011-2014, there was an agreement between the Vice Chancellors of the two universities, according to which CBA continues as a collaboration with joint activities administered by UU. The long term strategic planning of CBA is handled by a joint council with two representatives from each university. All personnel is employed at a department at one of the two universities, and everyday management of CBA is the responsibility of the head of the division of the Dept. of IT at UU to which CBA belongs.
The joint council Centrumråd held six committee meetings during 2014. The members appointed until December 31, 2014, were:
In the Fall of 2014, the Vice-Chancellors signed an agreement of the termination of SLU's involvement in the longstanding CBA cooperation. From 2015, there will be no CBA staff belonging to SLU; Gunilla Borgefors is a full-time Guest Professor at Uppsala University since 2012 with funding from SLU, Cris Luengo has left his position at SLU for a permanent research position at the Dept. of IT, and the PhD students have completed their exams.
The many organizational changes in the past few years have of course affected us all, to varying degrees. However, as seen in this report, we have been able to keep up a high activity despite a turbulent period. Scientifically, we continue in our areas of strength:
More specifically, we continue the development of the research area of hand-written text recognition of historical documents. Our collaboration with SciLifeLab continues and is further developed. At the same time, the PET/MRI equipment recently installed in Uppsala provides new research opportunities for us in the international front-line in collaboration with medical researchers. An opening, which is not a new direction for us but has been one of the CBA elements for many years, is the strategic initiatives in biomedical engineering being discussed within the Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, the Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy, and the Uppsala University Hospital.
CBA was founded in 1988 and is today Sweden's largest single unit for image analysis and has created a strong national and international position. This successful operation shows that center formations in special cases are worth investing in for many years. 2014 was our last year in collaboration with SLU and was as such the most successful. We regret that the longstanding cooperation has ceased, but have high hopes for a continued future within UU, Sweden, and internationally.