Ph.D. programs were introduced in Italian universities in 1982. Since the very beginning the Dipartimento di Informatica of the Università di Torino has been active in promoting and organizing a Ph.D. program in Computer Science at the Università di Torino.

Since 1999 the Ph.D. program in Computer Science is run in conjunction with the Dipartimento di Informatica of the Università del Piemonte Orientale.

The goal of the Ph.D. program is to provide Ph.D. students with a solid knowledge and understanding of different areas of Computer Science and with the ability to perform state-of-the-art research in one of the areas that are active at the Università di Torino and Piemonte Orientale, with particular emphasis on:

- Artifical Intelligence and Human Computer Interaction;
- Computer Systems and Networks;
- Data Base, Information Systems and Software Engineering;
- Semantics and Logics of Computation;
- Image Processing and Virtual Reality.

In order to fulfil this goal, the Ph.D. program is organized according to these main characteristics:
· Graduate courses. The Ph.D. program requires Ph.D. students to attend graduate courses (and take exams) offered directly by the Dipartimento di Informatica and by national and international schools (in particular the Bertinoro International Summer School for graduate studies in Computer Science, jointly organized by the Ph.D. programs of a number of universities, among them, the Università di Torino, and the Chambery- Torino Graduate School).
· Joint research activity between the members of the Department and the Ph.D. students in projects of national interest and/or in international projects. The strong cooperation between members of the Department and the Ph.D. students is witnessed by many co-authored papers. The success of our Ph.D. Program is also shown by the high number of past Ph.D. students who have academic positions in Italy or in foreign countries.
· Attention to applied research and co-operation with industry and research centers. In the last few years, a number of Ph.D. students have started to work in private research centers or industry.
· International contacts. The Department offers a wide range of international contacts via projects supported at an international level and via Networks of Excellence. Moreover, the Ph.D. students are encouraged to spend some months for visiting a foreign university or research center. A number of formal agreements exist with other universities: Universitè de Savoie (Chambery, France), University of Birmingham (UK), University of Novi Sad (Yugoslavia), Universitè de Paris VI (France), Universitè Paris Dauphine. Some of these agreements concern Ph.D. theses in “co-tutele” (co-supervised Ph.D.theses).

In 2004 and in 2005 the Committee of the Ph.D. Program in Computer Science (Collegio Docenti del Dottorato) was chaired by Prof. Pietro Torasso (Università di Torino) and its members were:

Prof. Cosimo Anglano (Università del Piemonte Orientale A.Avogadro)
Prof. Gianfranco Balbo (Università di Torino)
Prof. Nello Balossino (Università di Torino)
Prof. Francesco Bergadano (Università di Torino)
Prof. Mario Coppo (Università di Torino)
Prof. Mariangiola Dezani (Università di Torino)
Prof. Susanna Donatelli (Università di Torino)
Prof. Giuliana Franceschinis (Università del Piemonte Orientale A.Avogadro)
Prof. Alberto Martelli (Università di Torino)
Prof. Simona Ronchi della Rocca (Università di Torino)
Prof. Giovanni Sacco (Università di Torino)
Prof. Lorenza Saitta (Università del Piemonte Orientale A.Avogadro)
Prof. Paolo Terenziani (Università del Piemonte Orientale A.Avogadro)

In Spring 2004 the following Ph.D. candidates obtained the Ph.D. in Computer Science:

BALLARINI Paolo
BARAVALLE Andres
BOSCO Cristina
DE PIERRO Massimiliano
LANFRANCHI Vitaveska

while in January 2005 the following students obtained the Ph.D. in Computer Science:

CORRENDO Gianluca
LIKAVEC Silvia
MAZZEI Alessandro
NUNNARI Fabrizio
REMONDINO Marco
SERRA Alessandro
TORTA Gianluca
VALENTE Giulio

The following Ph.D. students concluded the Ph.D. program at the end of 2005 and the discussion of their dissertation is scheduled in January 2006:

ANSELMA Luca
BERTOLOTTI Paola
CANONICO Massimo
CODETTA RAITERI Daniele
DAL CHECCO Paolo
MANINI Daniele
SAURO Luigi

In November 2004 the following people started the Ph.D. program (20th call):

BASSO Alessandro
BECCUTI Marco
CORDERO Francesca
FOSSATI Luca
GABOARDI Marco
GALASSI Ugo
GALLO Arianna
PIOVANO Luca
TANGO Fabio

while in November 2005 the following students were admitted to the Ph.D. program (21st call):

DIPANKAR Bachar
ABDUR Jamali
LOVRO Iliasich
KOLUNDZIJA Marija

Among the many activities organized by the Ph.D. Program in 2004-2005, it is worth mentioning the International Doctoral School "Chambéry - Torino" in Theoretical Computer Science and in Semantic Web held in Aussois (Savoie, France), June 2004, and jointly organized by the Universitè de Savoie and the Università di Torino.