Organisation

Simula's main objectives are: 

• Conduct basic and long-term research in the fields of networks and distributed systems, scientific computing, and software engineering.
• Promote the application of research in both private and public sectors.
• Educate students at the master’s, doctoral, and postdoctoral levels in partnership with Norwegian universities. 

 Simula is organised as a limited company owned by the Ministry of Education and Research, and it is governed by a board of directors appointed by the owner. The board appoints a managing director, who in turn decides how Simula should operate on a day-to-day basis.

The name of the laboratory

Simula Research Laboratory is named after the object-oriented programming language, Simula, which was invented and developed in the sixties by the Norwegian pioneers Kristen Nygaard and Ole Johan Dahl. Simula and object-oriented programming is generally regarded as the most important Norwegian contribution to the ICT field to this date.