NLP Landscape: Germany (Research & Education)
Are you looking to study or work in the field of NLP? For this series, NLP People will be taking a closer look at the NLP education & development landscape in different parts of the world, including the best sites for job-seekers and where you can go for the leading NLP-related education programs on offer. The third article of the series covers Germany; see our previous articles about Ireland and France
RESEARCH GROUPS AND LABS
DFKI Language Technology lab is represented by Berlin LT Lab and the Multilingual Technologies Lab in Saarbrücken. DFKI LT lab conducts advanced research in language technology and develops novel solutions related to information and knowledge management, content production, speech and text processing. Key areas of their activity include text analytics, machine translation, human-robot interaction, and digital content creation.
The MLT group is connecting machine learning with knowledge-based systems, combining statistical and rule-based methods and integrating machine translation technology with the working environment of professional human translators. For more information about job openings, projects, and publications visit their website.
IDeaL/SFB1102, Saarland University
IDeaL (Information Density and Linguistic Encoding) is a collaborative research center, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). Their projects focus on the development of comprehensive models of language use uniting cognitive, computational, and social perspectives. IDeal’s research contributes to various areas of natural language processing and AI, including machine translation, text generation, speech synthesis and multimodal interfaces. IDeaL research center hosts regular talks of Distinguished Speakers in Language Science; more information on resources, Integrated Research Training Group (IGK) for PhD students, and job opportunities can be found on their webpage.
Max Planck Institute for Informatics
Department D5 of the Max Planck Institute for Informatics is focusing on the development of methodologies for “knowledge discovery and harvesting”; to achieve this ambition goal, they combine data mining, NLP, information retrieval, and statistical learning with database systems. Highlights of their research as well as their project offers can be found here and here.
Cluster of Excellence on “Multimodal Computing and Interaction”, Saarland University
MMCI Cluster of Excellence is a collaborative top-research facility, bringing together computer science, software systems, and computational linguistics. In Text and Speech Processing research area, they focus on structured distributional semantic models, combining machine learning and linguistic processing for information extraction, discourse-level processing, and language-centered multimodal interaction.
Two independent research groups are working on Embodied Spoken Interaction and Multimodal Speech Processing. More information can be found on their webpage.
Applied CompLing Discourse Research Lab, Potsdam University
The lab does research on theoretical and applied aspects of discourse processing, with the focus on text structure modeling as a multi-layer phenomenon, coherence relations, and their linguistic signals. Application-wise, the lab works on text summarization, classification, genre-sensitive information extraction, sentiment analysis, and text generation. For more information on resources, projects, and research, visit their webpage.
EDUCATION
University of Potsdam offers a two-year Master’s program that combines computational linguistics, machine learning, and knowledge representation and reasoning. Providing intensive hands-on experience, this degree fuses three fields in a peculiar interdisciplinary combination, with the main focus on intelligent systems development.
Master’s of Science in Language Science and Technology (LST)
Saarland University is one of the leading centers for language science and technology in Germany. The international Master’s program in LST aims at applied research in computational linguistics, psycholinguistics, speech technology, and NLP. Depending on their interests, students are free to tailor their studies focusing on specific aspects of the mentioned fields.
Language and Communication Technologies
LCT program combines high-quality technological training with the profound knowledge and insight into various disciplines that contribute to the methods of language and communication technologies. This program is practice-oriented, providing appropriate combinations of modules in language technology, computational and theoretical linguistics, and computer science.
Translation Science and Technology
TST curriculum bridges training in translation and language technologies, making it unique in Germany today. In addition to their studies in linguistics and translation, the program helps to develop tech skills, essential in modern communication industries.
Degrees in Computational Linguistics, Heidelberg
Hosting an international team of scientists tackling new topics and methods of machine learning for NLP, the department of Computational Linguistics at Heidelberg University offers Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in CL. More information can be found on their website.
Degrees in Computational Linguistics, Stuttgart
Institute for Natural Language Processing at the University of Stuttgart offers B. Sc. in Machine Language Processing, M. Sc. in Computational Linguistics, and PhD opportunities. Both programmes deal with natural languages and their formal representations, providing more in-depth research-oriented competence in specialised subjects such as NLP, Computational Linguistics, Computer Science, and formal linguistics.
NLPPeople is a global NLP-dedicated career & consultancy portal covering positions both in industry and academia. NLP Germany jobs are covered quite extensively there
About author:
Alena Vasilevich is a linguist gone computational. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in English Studies from Malmö University (Sweden) and at the moment is completing her M.Sc. in Language Science and Technology at Saarland University (Germany).
In her graduate thesis, she focuses on sentiment analysis of morphologically rich Russian data, driven by shallow and deep learning approaches. Alena is a research assistant at Anacode, Berlin-based startup doing software for international market intelligence based on NLP and large-scale Web data mining
Hi, I guess the NLP group in LMU Munich led by Prof. Hinrich Schütze etc., are pretty active and visible