In the age of "big data,” the central challenge is to understand structures and relationships in data: to make them visible and explain them using models that allow predictions to be made. The Institute for Visual and Analytic Computing (VAC) brings together six well-established research groups of computer science who have been working in this field of research for many years. VAC will further develop this traditional and successful field of science in Rostock and lead it into the future. The institute is part of the Computer Science Division on the Faculty of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the University of Rostock and is located in the Konrad-Zuse Building on the Südstadt-Campus.

VAC bundles research competences in computer science, which are fundamental for the development of new methods for the elucidation of structures in data, both individually as well as in a network. With VAC, the computer-science location Rostock is further developing its research profile in order to have a visible, profiled, and agile research organisation for the scientific challenges of the future, which are characterized by digitalization, big data, and intelligent algorithms. VAC will represent this topic both in basic and applied research as well as in teaching. This also includes the continuation and expansion of the cooperation with research institutions such as the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research (IGD), the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE).

The Institute for Visual and Analytic Computing is formed by the following research groups: Visual Analytics (Prof. Stefan Bruckner), Mobile Multimedia Information Systems (Prof. Thomas Kirste), Modelling and Simulation (Prof. Adelinde Uhrmacher), Maritime Graphics (Prof.Uwe Freiherr von Lukas) , Visual Computing (Prof. Oliver Staadt), Intelligent Data Analytics (Prof. Martin Becker), Marine Data Science (Prof. Stefan Lüdtke) and  Visual and Analytic Computing in Ocean Technologies (Prof. Stefan Oehmcke). With more than 40 employees, VAC has a solid basis to represent all aspects of Visual & Analytic Computing in research and teaching.