Courses

CWI highly values education. CWI researchers not only supervise and inspire the CWI PhD students, but also aim at contributing to teaching Master's students at universities. See the overview of CWI's current involvement in teaching courses in the Netherlands below.

Contribution to education

CWI is a research institute and does not have education as an institutional task. However, many of the senior researchers of CWI contribute to education via an affiliation or part-time appointment at one of the Dutch universities. CWI conveys the knowledge of the scientists employed at our institute to the new generation of mathematics and computer science students. Our staff contributes by e.g. teaching a university course or supervising MSc thesis projects carried out by university students. They also supervise PhD students at CWI, who defend their thesis at one of the Dutch universities after their employment at CWI. All courses can be found below in alphabetical order. You can also open the pdf for a complete overview.

Advanced Quantum Algorithms

A major claim to fame of quantum computers is that they will be able to solve some problems significantly faster than believed to be possible on a classical computer. The design of further quantum algorithms is an exciting active field of research, and there is still much left to explore in understanding which problems can be sped up by quantum computers, and by how much.

URL
Focus

In this course, students will learn about various advanced topics in quantum algorithms and algorithm design, as well as techniques for understanding for which problems it is possible to get a quantum speedup, and by how much.

Type
Course
Organisation
CWI educators
CWI group
Period
2 feb 2026 – 27 mar 2026
Level
MSc
ECTS
6.00

Additive combinatorics

Additive combinatorics is a relatively new area of mathematics that brings together areas such as combinatorial and analytic number theory, Ramsey theory, harmonic analysis, graph theory, extremal combinatorics, algebraic methods, ergodic theory and probability theory.

URL
Focus

To expose key ideas behind the Fourier-analytic and graph-theoretic proofs of Szemerédi's theorem, in addition to algebraic techniques used recently in breakthrough works for three-term arithmetic progressions in the finite-field setting.

Type
Course
Organisation
CWI educators
CWI group
Period
2 feb 2026 – 30 jun 2026
Level
MSc
ECTS
8.00

Quantum Computing

URL
Focus

Quantum Computing

Type
Course
Organisation
CWI educators
CWI group
Other educators
  • D. Schoneveld (Instructor)
Period
1 sep 2025 – 19 dec 2025
Location
UvA
Level
MSc
ECTS
8.00

Selected Topics in Quantum Information Processing

This course is intended to introduce master’s students to advanced topics in quantum computer science. It is a stepping stone between coursework and the research component of the master's thesis project. Through four modules taught by four different instructors, students will explore current research areas by looking at specialized topics at the forefront of quantum computing and quantum information theory.

URL
Focus

The course will feature the following specialized topics: Quantum walks and algebraic graph theory, Quantum proofs for classical theorems, State Tomography and shadow tomography, a small tour, and Quantum algorithms for classical topology.

Type
Course
Organisation
CWI educators
CWI group
Period
1 sep 2025 – 17 oct 2025
Level
MSc
ECTS
6.00

Introduction to Information Theory

In this course, we quickly review the basics of probability theory and introduce concepts such as (conditional) Shannon entropy, mutual information and entropy diagrams. Then, we prove Shannon's theorems about data compression and channel coding. An interesting connection with graph theory is made in the setting of zero-error information theory. We also cover some aspects of information-theoretic security such as perfectly secure encryption, and draw some connections to machine learning.

URL
Type
Course
Organisation
CWI educators
  • J. Zuiddam (Coordinator)
  • F. Witteveen (Lecturer)
  • J. Zuiddam (Lecturer)
CWI group
Period
1 sep 2025 – 24 oct 2025
ECTS
6.00

Quantum Information Theory

URL
Focus

This course offers a mathematical introduction to Quantum Information Theory. We will start with the fundamentals (such as quantum states, measurements, and channels) and then discuss some more advanced topics (such as compression of quantum information and entanglement theory).

Type
Course
Organisation
CWI educators
CWI group
Other educators
  • Ozols, Maria (Lecturer)
Period
3 feb 2025 – 23 may 2025
Level
MSc
ECTS
8.00

Advanced Quantum Algorithms

A major claim to fame of quantum computers is that they will be able to solve some problems significantly faster than believed to be possible on a classical computer. The design of further quantum algorithms is an exciting active field of research, and there is still much left to explore in understanding which problems can be sped up by quantum computers, and by how much.

URL
Focus

In this course, students will learn about various advanced topics in quantum algorithms and algorithm design, as well as techniques for understanding for which problems it is possible to get a quantum speedup, and by how much.

Type
Course
Organisation
CWI educators
CWI group
Period
3 feb 2025 – 28 mar 2025
Level
MSc
ECTS
6.00

Quantum Computing

URL
Focus

Quantum Computing

Type
Course
Organisation
CWI educators
CWI group
Other educators
  • D. Schoneveld (Instructor)
Period
9 sep 2024 – 16 dec 2024
Location
UvA
Level
MSc
ECTS
8.00