Interview with Fabian Jusufi
Fabian Jusufi is a member of the Coordination Digital Transformation team, which is in charge of the Azure service. In this interview, he talks about this year’s funding, why it exists and why Azure is interesting for researchers.
—
IT-News: Can you give us an overview of this year’s submissions? Are there any projects that use Azure in a particularly creative way?
This year, too, there are some very interesting topics and projects. The focus of the projects is clearly on artificial intelligence (AI). The topic of AI is ubiquitous in current times and in our daily work, and it is no different in the funded projects.
One project, for example, is developing an AI-supported student assistant chatbot and investigating the effects on students’ learning success. It is also designed to quickly and easily answer students’ questions. Other projects are working on making library collections more visible and are investigating the potential of AI to communicate scientific content in an appealing way. In addition, a knowledge database is being developed to make it easier for students to search for study-related information.
However, I don’t want to commit to saying which project is particularly creative. Each project is creative in its own way and has its raison d’être, otherwise it would not have received funding.
Which departments did the project submissions come from this year?
There are projects in the fields of psychology, computer science, German studies, and economics. This year, too, the submissions were very diverse. We are particularly pleased that, in addition to the classic research projects, there are also projects from the service units for research and teaching support, such as the Library and Archive Services and the Teaching Affairs and Student Services.
We see this as proof that providing Azure as a ZID service offers added value for the entire university and not just for technical or IT-focused departments. We also notice this from the many requests for Azure and the intensive use of the service by different departments, quite apart from the funding.
Why are Azure services of interest to researchers? How can they support them in their research?
Azure services are very versatile, flexible and scalable. However, we can particularly observe 2 reasons why Azure is used at the University of Vienna:
- The ZID does not offer the desired IT service as a separate, local ZID service. In this case, it makes sense to use a public cloud platform like Azure through the ZID, where a secure environment is offered in the cloud.
- Problems with the flexibility or scalability of local services. These problems do not exist with Azure services: they can be quickly and easily configured, started, stopped, deleted and restored. Especially in research projects, this flexibility is often the key to success. If you need to make a change after the initial configuration, such as more computing power or additional AI models, it can be done quickly and easily. All of this is a major advantage compared to on-premises services, especially for research.
Why is funding available for research with Azure services and what does the ZID hope to achieve by awarding it?
We want to motivate members of the University of Vienna, especially researchers, to implement or at least start their projects in Azure. In our daily work, we often hear that researchers would like to use Azure but lack the budget for it or are deterred by the cost uncertainty in the public cloud. With this funding, we want to make the first step in Azure easier.
At the same time, we as the team that operates Azure benefit enormously, because many use cases are new to us as well. So we are also learning, gaining new experiences, and at the same time, our service is growing.
How has the use of Azure services in research at the University of Vienna developed since the funding was established?
Azure is still a fairly new ZID service, having only been introduced at the beginning of 2023. Since then, it has grown continuously and we are seeing increasing interest, even from departments where we did not expect it before the service was introduced. We are therefore hoping that this year’s funding will also bring us new long-term users. In any case, the learning experiences in the first year of the funding were enormous and we also see that some projects are continuing to operate in Azure despite the funding expiring.
The projects began in February. Do you have any insight into how the start went?
After the funding had been awarded, the project environments were set up in Azure in January. 8 of the 9 projects have now started their project work. For the projects that are already working more intensively, the start was smooth and without major problems. There will be an interim report from the projects in September and the final report at the end of December.
Will funding also be available in 2026?
Yes, we expect so. There are many reasons to support a new call for proposals. We will assess the demand, evaluate the projects and then provide information about the call for proposals.
—
A complete list of the funded research projects, including abstracts, can be found at Funding for research with Azure services.