About Us

The Process and Data Science Group

is one of the research units in the Department of Computer Science at RWTH Aachen University. The scope of PADS includes all activities where discrete processes are analysed, reengineered, and/or supported in a data-driven manner. Process-centricity is combined with an array of Data Science techniques. The group has been established in 2018 in the context of the Alexander von Humboldt Professorship awarded to prof.dr.ir Wil van der Aalst. The award is Germany’s most prestigious and valuable prize for international researchers. The main research focus is on Process Mining (including process discovery, conformance checking, performance analysis, predictive analytics, operational support, and process improvement). This is combined with neighboring disciplines such as operations research, algorithms, discrete event simulation, business process management, and workflow automation.

RWTH Aachen University

Many new products and processes originate in Aachen. In the research laboratories and test rooms of RWTH, the first all-metal aircraft was developed, for example, as was the diesel soot filter. This is where the first wind tunnel stood and the first particle accelerator. This trend-setting innovative capacity and the practical technology transfer to the economic world have a long history in Aachen, the City of Science.

RWTH Aachen University is one of the strongest universities in Germany and its computer science program is consistently ranked top 3. It is one of the eleven excellence universities in Germany hosting over 45,000 students and over 6,000 scientists. As a whole, there are over 60,000 students and is a close cooperation with the industry. Visible evidence of this is the RWTH Aachen Campus that is being developed in close cooperation with the industry and which is to form one of the largest research parks in Europe.