The advantage of the consortium is the availability of a number of facilities and training courses (inhouse or tailor-made) that can be offered by partner universities and companies. These will be made available to all researchers on the project. During the preparation of their personal development plan the researcher and their supervisor can decide on their choice of courses from the list below. The choice will strongly depend on previous experience and skills of the researcher.
English language skills
A course with focus on scientific English will be offered to all participants. The course will cover aspects of style and structuring in scientific writing, vocabulary, common errors, presentation language etc. The course is scheduled at the beginning of the ITN and is accommodated at TUG.
Presentation and reporting skills
There will be regular project meetings of the consortium (every six months) at which every researcher will be asked to present their progress in English. Project supervisors will monitor presentations of their students and will provide further training on a one-to-one basis where necessary. As part of the S+T management the researchers will write quarterly reports which will be circulated around the ITN partners. This will also ensure good communications between the groups as well as being a good basis for training of the researchers. To make communication efficient, such reports will be made available through a password protected interactive website that will be accessible for EUROMBR members only (see Section B.4.6 for details). Every 6 month period – i.e. in between ITN meetings – there will be a virtual meeting. Moreover, a web-based (WIKI-based) discussion forum will be established to follow up each virtual meeting with discussions. The chair of the Supervisory Board will be responsible for these virtual meetings and will, assisted by the Management Team, ensure circulation of quarterly reports.
Teaching/Training skills
ESRs and ERs will get involved in many teaching and training activities, listed in the Career Development plan. In addition, some more experienced ESRs and ERs will get involved in organizing the meetings and workshops (under supervision of academic organizers): they will help with developing time tables, setting up of equipment, hands-on-training, tutorials and seminars and final evaluation of the training activity. ESRs and ERs will also get involved in training other colleagues within the project as part of the lab rotation scheme (see B.3.4).
Project management skills
Training in project management will happen at two different levels: (i) Individual project training for the ESRs in order to complete their PhD; (ii) a formal project management course run by DTU at ESR and ER level in collaboration with the DTU Management Department. The latter course will be combined with a Technical Meeting at UCL in month 12 (see WP4, section B.3.3) to save on travel expenses. A large part of the PhD project management training will be done by the project supervisor in accordance with local university regulations. Such training will be based on regular meetings were progress is discussed and future work planned, through 1st year, 2nd year and final PhD reports and regular project meetings. In addition, given that the PhD projects are interdisciplinary across Universities and in order to make sure that training is consistent throughout the project, each ESR will be asked to prepare a time plan (Gantt chart) covering the three years of their PhD project including all activities – research and training – and should include milestones such as reports, talks at meetings, visits to other laboratories and projected publications. The Gantt chart should also include training required in specific techniques inside and outside the own laboratory, training and access to equipment inside and outside the laboratory. This Gantt chart will be included with their personal development plan and will be revised and commented on after year 1, 2 and 2.5. The Training Supervisory Board will look at all the Gantt charts to ensure dissemination of best practice in training.
Entrepreneurship and Intellectual Property awareness
ESRs and ERs will be trained in technology exploitation and intellectual property rights in a three day workshop with interactive group work. The course is offered by lecturers from the technologies exploitation service of partner TUG. The course covers basic knowledge on intellectual property rights, patent affairs, licensing, business development, business start-ups and business-plan writing. The course will be scheduled at the beginning of the ITN. In addition to this theoretical training we will promote the ESRs and ERs to develop practical competences and skills within the commercial exploitation of advanced technical knowledge, technology and research results through business start-ups and business-development.