Erik Granum was born 1944 in Vejle, Denmark.
He received the B.Eng. degree in EEE 1967 from Aarhus Teknikum, Denmark. After 3 years in industry, he earned the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electronics in 1973 and 1981, respectively, at the Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, where he joined the staff of the Electronics Laboratory in 1973 to do research in image processing and pattern recognition applied to automated analysis and classification of human chromosomes (collaboration with Chromosome Lab., “Rigshospitalet”, University of Copenhagen).

For the period 1979 – 1983 he was on the staff of the British Medical Research Council at the “Clinical and Population Cytogenetics Unit” in Edinburgh, working in the “Pattern Recognition and Automation Section” on various aspects of automation for microscope image analyses. From 1983 he has been with The Institute of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University (AAU), first as an associate professor of computer engineering, and since 1989 as full professor, chair of information systems (image analysis and computer vision). In 2009 he retired, but continued as professor emeritus with the university.

In 1984 he founded the Laboratory of Image Analysis, which in 1999 became the Laboratory of Computer Vision and Media Technology, CVMT. He was one of the main actors in the establishment of an interdisciplinary multimedia and virtual reality centre at AalborgUniversity in 1999. In 2005 he was assigned the task of founding a “remote AAU-Campus” in Copenhagen, and was thus from 2005-2008 Head of the Department of Media Technology and Engineering Science, with sections in both Copenhagen and Aalborg – and including CVMT.

He is co-founder of the Danish Pattern Recognition Society, member of IAPR, co-founder and president of the Foundation Vision North, referee for several international journals and conferences, and on the programme committee for various international conferences. He was conference chairman of the 7th Scandinavian Conference on Image Analysis, Aalborg 1991, of the first “i³ Annual Conference”, Nyborg 1998, and of “Presence 2003”, the 6th International Workshop on Presence in Aalborg.

Through projects supported by national and international research programmes, he has pursued his interests in motion analysis, colour vision, computer vision in multimedia as well as visualisation, virtual/augmented reality, and autonomous agents – increasingly interdisciplinary.

He has been co-ordinating contractor of several Danish, Scandinavian, European, and inter­continental research consortia and networks (e.g. NORBIT technology transfer network, NORVIC research network, ESPRIT-BR3038/7108-”VAP”, “RETINA” HCM-network, ESPRIT Explorative Action “SAM” ECIS-003, ESPRIT LTR/i3-ese project PUPPET), and a partner of several others (e.g. ECUS-003, SMART I/II, VIRGO, ECVNet, “3D Visual Data Mining”, “Staging of Inhabited Virtual 3D-Spaces”, ARTHUR, FG-Net). He was founding member of i3NET, the European Network for Intelligent Information Interfaces, and co-ordinating contractor of the national research project ACROSS and of the EU-IST-FET Presence project BENOGO (Being there – without going).

In 1991 he received the Villum Kann Rasmussen Award for technical scientific research. He was on the advisory board on research in Electronic and Electrical Engineering for the Danish Technical Research Council, and frequently reviewer for Norwegian and Swedish Research Councils, for EU-IST and for many international journals and conferences. He has often been on doctoral dissertations and professional appointment committees in e.g. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, and the USA.

Professor Granum has given or co-authored more than hundred scientific contributions in image processing and analysis, visual and automatic classification, pattern recognition methods and systems, computer (colour) vision, visualisation, virtual reality, and autonomous agents. Hereof more than thirty in research monographs, refereed international journals or invited papers.