The goal of the LIACS Media Lab (LML) at Leiden University is to unify education and research in the areas of multimedia analysis/understanding, artificial intelligence, human computer interaction and internet technologies. It is regularly used in a wide variety of university courses, by at least 30 student research projects per year, and is directly tied to tasks in numerous ongoing national and international research grants.

Specifically, the LIACS Media Lab provides three important aspects which are not available in any other lab or facility in LIACS. These are (1) Light-controlled facilities to perform controlled scientific experiments in human-computer interaction and computer vision; (2) Very high electrical current power facilities (space, hardware, software, etc.) for university courses to perform multimedia/internet related workshops including special for special purpose multimedia equipment; and (3) High internet bandwidth and addresses for next generation Internet projects - the LIACS network is designed to allow us to experiment with advanced high bandwidth Internet services and not interfere with normal CS faculty usage. Only the LML is setup for (1), (2), and (3) above.

This has resulted in over 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications and exceptionally high student enthusiasm for multimedia research. Moreover, the existence of the lab has assisted in helping us get research funding from Dutch government organizations, world-class research organizations such as Philips Research Labs, and the European Union.

Role: LML provides both facilities and expertise for faculty and students

- at least 5 courses use the facilities

- at least 50 students per year

- 3 international awards for multimedia student projects (2006 - 2009)

Role: LML provides the main source for multimedia analysis publications

- Over 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications mostly in ACM, IEEE and LNCS

- 70% of the Master's projects are published

Role: LML provides websites, paper reviewer systems, and central scientific leadership

- ACM Multimedia, ACM MIR, IEEE HCI, ACM Trans. Multimedia

Role: LML provides a wide variety of web and information services

- lobby/plasma screen wall system, LIACS webpages and courses

- Multimedia knowledge and expertise and tutoring