European Masters Programme “EMINENT”
Future ubiquitous digital technologies are a keystone in the global efforts in advanced automatization, environmental monitoring, and climate protection, driven by the overarching Green Deal vision. The underlying demand in cross-sectional “sensing” and “sense-making” intelligent technologies result in a continuous convergence of the fields of nanotechnology, edge intelligence and smart perceptive sensor systems, merging them into embedded intelligence nanosystems. As a consequence, there is an increasing demand at economic and academic level for human talents with a corresponding broader, more generalist educational background. This demand is further amplified by the envisioned transition of Europe, from presently predominantly being a consumer of digital hardware towards a global leader and provider of IoT and CPS technologies.
The EMINENT master’s programme provides students with such a holistic education in embedded intelligence nanosystems engineering. It combines advanced training starting from the nanoscale material and device technology to the computing architectures of intelligent sensing elements, including the perspectives of macroscale integrated systems and meaningful IoT application areas. It joins excellent research and innovation oriented educational expertise across Europe, extending in this case from Portugal in the West to Lithuania in the East. This approach is absolutely unique on the European level and thereby provides unique benefits and opportunities for the students enrolled in the programme:
- Broad technological and educational expertise, and the research and innovation infrastructure, typically unavailable at a singular institution
- In depth curriculum on embedded intelligence nanosystems engineering complimented by topical specialisation tracks and digital, entrepreneurial and soft skills
- Training across existing disciplinary barriers
- Collaborative education in close contact with associated industrial partners and their networks in the employment market
- Learning beyond cultural barriers, enabling easier moves between countries
- Integrated and coordinated enhanced mobility plan
- Joint degree awarded by the participating academic institutions
- Consideration of all admitted students for the award of a scholarship
- EMINENT support service: Enrolment Advisors, visa support, welcome days, mentoring system, Alumni Club, career service, disability support.
You can learn more about EMINENT at the programme’s website https://eminent-master.eu/
ATHENA European University
The “European Universities Initiative” is a flagship project of the European Union in the field of higher education and research that aims to make European universities more open, efficient, and inclusive on an international level. The Advanced Technology Higher Education Network Alliance (ATHENA) is one of the pilot projects of this initiative that were selected by the European Commission in 2020. ATHENA brings together the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (Portugal, coordination), the Universities of Maribor (Slovenia), Orléans (France) and Siegen (Germany), Hellenic Mediterranean University (Greece), Niccolò Cusano University (Italy) and Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (Lithuania). The ZESS is actively involved in the implementation of ATHENA’s offer, with a special focus on the areas of Research & Development and involvement of regional industry.
International Cooperation in Research & Development
Along with the promotion of internationalised study programmes, mobility offers, and digital learning, one of ATHENA’s focal points is international cooperation in the field of Research & Development. Based on the latest technological findings, innovative methods are developed to enable cross-border research and to establish it in a European higher education framework. International research cooperations increase the exchange of doctoral students and lecturers at the participating universities and strengthen the quality of European research.
Practice-oriented research projects in collaboration with industrial partners ensure a consistent alignment with global market needs. Students, teachers, and representatives of industry tackle social and ecological tasks together. A central point of ATHENA’s vision is to actively share the research results with society and to always direct them towards social benefits.
Strengthening Cooperation with Industrial Partners
Through its involvement in ATHENA, the University of Siegen is developing innovative solutions to address trend-setting challenges in the European labour market. These include, on the one hand, advancing digitalisation and automation, and, on the other hand, the increasing demand for highly qualified employees. ATHENA offers companies access to help shape curricula and keep pace with the rapidly changing demands of the labour market. Together with industry partners, ATHENA develops strategies so that expertise can be pooled in Europe and existing resources can be used in the best possible way.
Close cooperation between industry, teaching, and research enables research results to be exchanged sustainably between companies and the universities involved. Students have a wide range of opportunities for practice-oriented learning within the framework of doctoral projects, student research projects, or working as student trainees and benefit from the best possible opportunities on the international labour market and a successful transition from studies to work.
Further information is available on the website https://athenauni.eu/. You can find a brief description of ATHENA’s goals and offers in German in the project flyer.
SMART SENSING – International Doctoral Programme at ZESS
The Centre for Sensor Systems (ZESS) at the University of Siegen yearly awards selected scholarships to individuals studying sensor systems and closely related topics. The recipients chosen each year by our dedicated scholarship committee demonstrate excellence in the field of sensor systems. These students come from various disciplines in natural sciences and engineering, but they are guided by a common goal: a thorough drive for knowledge in sensor systems.
Since the ZESS Scholarship Program began in 2002, it has awarded more than 200 students with aspirations in sensor systems to further the advancement of this research area. Many of these students have successfully continued their careers to become academic and industry leaders and stay in close contact with us. ZESS is dedicated to assist highly promising students and recognises the achievements of graduating high school seniors, undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students.
Historical Programmes
MENELAOS NT
In the context of rapid changes of our planet Earth, explosive population growth, accelerating industrialization, especially in the emerging countries, increasing exploitation of resources, serious natural hazards, recent natural disasters, and, importantly, the growing number of complex systems interacting with their environments, the European Training Network (ETN) MENELAOSNT addresses the ever more significant problem of scientifically and technologically exploring the world on micro- and macroscopic scale. The research and development goal is to provide scientists with deeper insights, better understanding and more information to understand and monitor the basic processes and environments in order to predict and possibly control critical evolutions. This would support decision makers with more sophisticated and reliable information for deciding on sustainable measures. MENELAOSNT addresses societal key challenges, e.g., sustainable agriculture and forestry, bioeconomy, environmental changes, resource efficiency, as well as protecting freedom and security of the European society.
MENELAOSNT applies Novel Technologies to realize multimodal – multi sensor data fusion to optimally combine the information, delivered by different sensors (in-situ/remote, optical/non optical) on different scales, with different resolutions and with different reliability. Traditional remote observation, as well as local (in-situ based) approaches have demonstrated to be insufficient to cope with the ample but very tailored information need of the decision-making bodies.
Mehr zu Menelaos NT
MOSES
International Postgraduate Programme Research School for „Multi Modal Sensor Systems for Environmental Exploration and Safety (MOSES)“
2008 – 2017
The international doctoral program of ZESS allowed highly qualified applicants a research training in the field of sensor development and data processing at the University of Siegen. Together with the network partners Fraunhofer FHR and Fraunhofer FKIE the ZESS it offered students the opportunity to base a grants-based funding independently in their field to research.
DFG RTG “Imaging New Modalities”
2009 -2018
The graduate school 1564 funded by DFG was a structured interdisciplinary doctoral programme in the application range of civil security with the fields of person detection/biometry, material analysis and scene monitoring. The research work included the whole field of sensor development, sensor processing up to sensor data analysis. A special focus was on novel sensor elements such as the Photonic Mixing Device (PMD) Technology, spectrally extended sensors in the range of THz-beam and spectrally high-resolution sensors for visible light (colorimetric arrays). Both monomodal and multimodal methods for efficient and robust information mining were researched thoroughly.