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.

Algorithmic Mechanism Design

Algorithmic Mechanism Design (AMD) is a research area that lies at the interface of Game Theory and Algorithms and Optimization. On a high level, the goal in AMD is to develop algorithms that induce "socially desirable" outcomes in situations in which several strategic decision makers (or agents) are involved. Examples of the many applications of AMD include auctions, matching markets, voting systems, environmental regulations, fair allocation and division, cost and energy sharing, etc. To achieve the above, we need to design algorithms that (i) compute such desirable outcomes efficiently, and (ii) determine an incentive scheme for the agents such that it is in each agents' self-interest to adhere to the computed solution. Naturally, the development of such algorithms is even more challenging than "traditional" algorithm design.

Type
Course
Organisation
CWI educators
CWI group
Other educators
  • Prof. Dr. M. Uetz (Lecturer)
Period
1 mar 2027 – 10 may 2027
Location
Utrecht University
Other urls
Level
PhD

Networks and Semidefinite Programming

URL
Focus

The course deals with several basic combinatorial optimization problems. While these problems are intrinsically hard to solve in general, we will present polynomial-time solvable instances. Algorithms use combinatorial tools, linear and semidefinite programming.

Type
Course
Organisation
CWI educators
CWI group
Other educators
  • Polak, Sven (Lecturer)
Period
23 nov 2026 – 22 feb 2027
Location
Utrecht Universiteit
Level
PhD

Continuous Optimization

This course aims to provide a concise introduction into the basics of continuous unconstrained, constrained and conic optimization.

URL
Type
Course
Organisation
CWI educators
CWI group
Period
7 sep 2026 – 15 jan 2027
Level
MSc
ECTS
6.00

Algorithmic Game Theory UvA

Algorithmic game theory (AGT) is a research area that lies in the intersection of theoretical computer science, discrete mathematics and economic theory.

URL
Focus

Algorithmic game theory (AGT) is a research area that lies in the intersection of theoretical computer science, discrete mathematics and economic theory.

Type
Course
Organisation
CWI educators
CWI group
Period
1 sep 2026 – 23 oct 2026
Level
MSc

Algorithmic Game Theory

URL
Focus

Algorithmic Game Theory (AGT) is an interdisciplinary research area that lies in the intersection of Theoretical Computer Science, Discrete Mathematics and Economic Theory

Type
Course
Organisation
CWI educators
CWI group
Period
4 mar 2026 – 15 may 2026
Location
UvA
Level
PhD

Semidefinite Optimisation

URL
Focus

The course aims at students with an interest in optimization, combinatorics, geometry, and algebra. The purpose of the course is to give an introduction to the theory, computational techniques, and applications of semidefinite optimization.

Type
Course
Organisation
CWI educators
CWI group
Other educators
  • Oliveira, Fernando (Lecturer)
Period
6 feb 2026 – 21 may 2026
Location
Utrecht
Level
MSc
ECTS
8.00

Algorithms in Sequence Analysis

URL
Focus

In this course we focus on the most important algorithms for biological sequence analysis that can be applied to real scientific problems in biology.

Type
Course
Organisation
CWI educators
  • Dr. S. Pissis (Examinator)
  • Dr. S. Pissis (Instructor)
CWI group
Period
27 oct 2025 – 19 dec 2025
Level
MSc
ECTS
6.00

Algorithmic Game Theory UvA

Algorithmic game theory (AGT) is a research area that lies in the intersection of theoretical computer science, discrete mathematics and economic theory.

URL
Focus

Algorithmic game theory (AGT) is a research area that lies in the intersection of theoretical computer science, discrete mathematics and economic theory.

Type
Seminar
Organisation
CWI educators
CWI group
Period
1 sep 2025 – 16 oct 2025
Level
MSc