An European Ph.D. Program in Information Technology: Why do we need it?
Information Technology (IT) is a term that encompasses all different procedures and techniques used to create, store, exchange, and use information in its various forms (business data, voice conversations, still images, motion pictures, multimedia presentations,...). Its importance and influence in the everyday life of any citizen of the European Community and of the entire world is so evident that it is often called the information revolution.
The ubiquity of IT can be seen almost everywhere: in the shift of business's equipment investment into information technologies, in the unprecedented emergence of the web as a venue for commerce and communication, in the proliferation of computers in businesses and homes; and, in the wide spread of low-cost, high-data rate wired or wireless communication equipment, which had a tremendous impact on our society, and are expected to play an even more radical role in the next future.
As a natural consequence of such a technical and social revolution, IT industries have grown at a tremendous rate, creating jobs not only in the industry itself, but also in the industries that use IT. According to the reports of the European Information Technology Observatory (EITO), these IT jobs represented some 13.4% of total employment in Western Europe, and are expected to grow even further. Despite this apparent ideal situation, Europe is actually facing a serious problem. In fact, the variety and complexity of software and hardware IT products and their applications, together with the unique requirements of each IT-related industry, have created "spot" demand for workers with unique combinations of IT skills and experience. In other terms, the ambitious plans of enabling our continent to benefit from the opportunities of Information Technology could be jeopardized by a shortage of workers with the necessary skills. The percentage of IT skill shortage increased from 10% in 2001 to 12% in 2005, with a correspondent shortage increase of approximately half a million in terms of IT related jobs.
The Ph.D. program offered by the European Doctorate in Information Technology (EDITH) aims to respond to this innovative demand of human resources and to specifically ensure that today's young people have the education and training they need in order to work in an information age. More specifically, the program focus efforts to:
1. broaden the spectrum and the breath of competence of young researchers in the field of IT ;
2. give them research skills necessary to obtain specialist knowledge of subjects pertinent to IT;
3. provide them the ability to use logical and lateral thinking needed to achieve creative and innovative solutions to engineering problems;
4. bring together the unique teaching and research features of highly qualified European University and Research Centers with complementary expertise working on the fields of Electronics, Information and Communication Technologies.
5. create a link between academic and industrial bodies in Europe.
The consortium partners of the EDITH program, all of which are excellent players in the field of Information Technology in their own country, are the following Universities
1. ARCES, University of Bologna, Italy
2. DIMES, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
3. EPFL-I&C, I & C School, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Switzerland
4. IMEP, Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble, France
5. SCD-K.U.Leuven, EE Dept. (ESAT), Faculty of Engineering (FTW), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
and the following Research Institutes
6. CEA-LETI, Commissariat a' l'Energie Atomique, Laboratoire d'Electronique, de Technologie de l'Information, France
7. IMEC, Interuniversitair Micro-Elektronica Centrum, Belgium
For a more detailed description of each partner skill and peculiarities, click on the corresponding name.
Advantages of the EDITH Program: What do we offer to Ph.D. Students?
The EDITH partners jointly provide a unique platform for a training program covering the broad field of IT, and tackle its multiple and complex aspects. The inter-disciplinary and transnational characteristics of the training network embedded in the EDITH Ph.D. program will have a beneficial impact on the students as:
1. it ensures a broadening in the spectrum and in the breath of their competence in the IT field;
2. it offers them the possibility to work in a scientifically rich and stimulating environment, that will have a long lasting effect on the research capacity of the students;
3. it gives the chance to perform their studies in the structure of the partner that offers the best-possible training facilities (e.g. they may follow courses taught by the most qualified researchers/professors among the partners, they can access to high-cost facilities available in one of the partners sites);
4. it assure them international contacts and exchanges of innovative ideas, helping them to go beyond what is strictly instrumental for their Ph.D. thesis.
5. it gives to students the possibility to be supported in their future career, with the realization of ad-hoc training programs;
6. it offers an internationally-recognized (double) academic title
Each partners of EDITH offers several Ph.D positions every year. More details can be found here. The recruitment procedures slightly differ for the different partners: please read some more details here before applying.
In addition to the positions offered by all partners, some positions have been financed by the European Commission under the Marie Curie (MC) Early Stage Researcher Training program (EST) under contract. For more details please contact the local responsible of the program.
The ultimate goal of the EDITH project is to arrive at a formal agreement for a joint Ph.D. degree, widely recognized in Europe and elsewhere. From this point of view several bilateral agreement have been signed (or are currently negotiated) among partners. More specifically between
- ARCES, University of Bologna and SCD-K.U.Leuven, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
- ARCES, University of Bologna, and IMEC, Interuniversitair Micro-Elektronica Centrum
- ARCES, University of Bologna, and IMEP, Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble
- ARCES, University of Bologna, and 1. CEA-LETI, Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, Laboratoire d'Electronique, de Technologie de l' Information, France
- SCD-K.U.Leuven, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium and IMEP, Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble, France (currently in preparation).
Thanks to these agreements any students enrolled by ARCES or SCD-K.U.Leuven (or equivalently IMEC) that will spend part of their Ph.D. in the other institution will be awarded by a double Ph.D. title both form University of Bologna and K.U.Leuven. The same will happen for the case of ARCES and IMEP (or CEA-LETI) or, in the near future, between SCD-K.U.Leuven and INPG. For more details you may ask here
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