Strategic Partnership for the Development of Training Workshops and Modeling Clinic for Industrial Mathematics Erasmus Project

Project Title

Strategic Partnership for the Development of Training Workshops and Modeling Clinic for Industrial Mathematics

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Research and innovation

Project Summary

“There is a very close link between higher education and development. Universities are key institutions that help to create new knowledge, to develop new skills, and in that respect contribute very directly to economic growth, and productivity. Apart from developing the skills and knowledge necessary for economic growth, they also play a key role in the building of democratic societies.”- Adriana Jaramillo, World Bank Senior Education Specialist.
Progress of industry and novel engineering solutions are increasingly depending on computational approach, modelling and simulation. Mathematical technologies are needed to produce effective design processes, accelerate test cycles, spur innovation, support systems integration schemes and control the production models. Industrial mathematics is among the next generation methodologies in R&D and knowledge management. This presents a challenge for university education, curriculum development, training practices and research collaboration.
With the main aim to contribute addressing these challenges, the project develops and integrates a research training course and a problem solving workshop, for the challenging mathematical and computational problems from industry and applied sciences, every year, during a period of two years.
The strategic objective of the partnership is to make effective use of the pool of special expertise and experience in the network. Problems of industrial mathematics are multidisciplinary even within mathematics itself. Combining skills and interaction between groups is often a key to solutions. Our network has facilitated the exchange between the partners and set up a basis for sustained collaboration.
The project concentrated on practical problems representing crucial technological challenge and dealt with questions like novel energy solutions, challenges having impact on environmental sustainability and employment.
The purpose has been to train each year a group of 20 PhD and advanced undergraduate (MSc, BSc) level students, addressing four industrial problems from leading edge technological development. The topics addressed have been different every year, although all of them has been focused on mathematical modelling of industrial problems and the training of future researchers through intensive courses and problem solving.
Focused on young people, the project has prepared them for professional life, through supervised real life problem solving and oriented academic environment. The project boosts professional skills of engineers and mathematicians and improves their employability in home countries. One of the outcomes is modernizing engineering higher education with novel training methods, i.e. modeling workshops for solving real life problems, led by expert young researchers in the chosen fields.
The project concept is a novel approach that assimilates features from prior European experience and successful innovative models overseas, like RIPS’s model from USA. It results in development of research capacity in applied mathematics, spur science and technology education and inspire curriculum updates. Moreover, these results contributed in promoting technological development in the participating countries and modernize the education and applied research agenda in the participating departments. For students, the project has opened open more career and employment perspectives.
The project introduces into European higher education a novel concept in academic research training and education of industrial mathematics by combining elements from earlier successful ideas tested worldwide. The suggested strategic partnership has generated a model case and template for similar arrangements. There are many universities and hundreds of industries in Europe and neighbouring partner countries that could implement a similar configuration in order to establish a bridge between academic mathematics, computational technology and the real world R&D.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 140304 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSIDAD DE LAS PALMAS DE GRAN CANARIA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITAET KOBLENZ-LANDAU
• POLITECHNIKA WROCLAWSKA
• INSTITUTO SUPERIOR TECNICO
• LAPPEENRANNAN-LAHDEN TEKNILLINEN YLIOPISTO LUT
• UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI CATANIA
• UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA