A new world discipline establishes

Börje Langefors, Sweden's first professor in Electronic Data Processing (EDP), which is today known as Information Systems. Langefors also created the Swedish name for the computer, “dator”.

The foundation of DSV lays in 1965 by Sweden's first IT Professor Börje Langefors. Langefors, who helped develop the new academic subject of Information processing specialising in methods for Administrative Data Processing within the ADP discipline. The discipline was the first in the world within the field, and as one of the Nordic IT pioneers, Langefors was an active contributor to place Sweden on the international IT map.

One of the world’s first IT departments

In 1966, a joint institute was created by Stockholm University and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), named Svenska ADB-institutionen (ADB is a Swedish abbreviation for IT or ICT used during 1950s-1980s). During the same year, the first training holds for students within this new discipline. In 1987, the department changed its name to Computer and Systems Sciences (in Swedish Data- och systemvetenskap), abbreviated DSV.

The integration of a technical and a social science perspective on the topic gave department-specific opportunities, and already from the outset, the academic activities had a strong focus on Information Technology (IT) and mixed Systems Sciences in a Social Sciences perspective on Applied Computer Science and Communication.

This unique focus differentiates DSV from many other similar institutions in Sweden, who instead moved towards the narrower field of Informatics (with its Swedish definition of “Informatik”), which makes DSV one of the first IT departments in the world.