PROM – we have won another project for young scientists

70 people will be able to benefit from financing by the National Agency for Academic Exchange and get a scholarship in foreign scientific institutions or come to UPWr from abroad within a project called: “PROM – the International Scholarship Exchange of doctoral students and academic staff”. For 35 scholarships abroad and 35 for foreign students and academics at UPWr, our University has obtained 1 million PLN to be spent in the coming year.

One of the objectives is to achieve a quota of minimum 80% doctoral students participating in the projects and maximum 20% of the academic staff. All the admitted candidates will be under 40 years old. The mobilities are supposed to be not shorter than 30 days and the applicants will be evaluated with respect to their knowledge of foreign languages, future ambitions and career plans, pursuit of self-improvement, competence development, teamwork abilities and the expected outcomes of their participation in the project.

Participants will have an opportunity to acquire material for their doctoral theses and scientific articles, as well as to use equipment not available at their own universities. UPWr wants to make use of the exchanges to create a joint application policy for international projects within initiated topical research groups. The University also hopes that the experience gained abroad will be reflected in articles for reputed scientific journals and international publications, as well as in the development of international cooperation networks, improving research and organizational potential of UPWr and strengthening its international position.

The selection of partner institutions for the project was preceded by consultations in each of the seven leading disciplines at UPWr and coordinated by their leaders.

For civil engineering and transport, several world-leading institutions have been selected, specializing in geodesy, satellite navigation, remote sensing and geoinformatics – Stuttgart and Bern Universities being among them. The academic exchange will make it possible to continue cooperation in these research areas which will enhance the work on international scientific projects regarding, especially, techniques of precise positioning connected with processing of newest available data streams and of satellite observations: GNSS, SLR, observations for low Earth orbit satellites, as well as geoinformation.

In the field of environmental engineering, mining and energy the selected institutions include Iowa State University and Liverpool University. The cooperation of our scientists going abroad and foreign scientists coming to Wrocław will be, in most cases, a continuation of previously initiated collaboration. As all activities within PROM are aimed at developing a given scientific discipline, the training supervisors are experts with international reputation, heads of scientific projects and authors of numerous JCR list publications.

Concerning biological sciences, the partner universities chosen are some of the world leaders in the field – like the University of Gothenburg or Stanford University. The cooperation is to include such areas as: nanobiotechnology, pharmaceutical formulations, phospholipid structures, relationships among phytoplasmas, flavonoid compounds and work on enzymes and proteins.

In the area of farming and horticulture, the selection was based on reputation and unique research equipment. The cooperation will include the University of Auckland and Reykjavik University. The scope of research to be carried out includes the analysis of structure of humic substances in soils and composts with the use of magnetic resonance method or reconstruction of soil erosion intensity in the light of isotopic analysis.

In the fields of food and nutrition technology the academic exchange is supposed to focus on the following issues: extraction of fish proteins, the use of edible filamentous fungi strains for manufacturing quality products, ICP-MS, MP-AES and GC-QQQ techniques or the functionality of properties of flavonoid compounds. Our partner institutions are world leaders in the area of food research. They are, among others, the University of Georgia and the University of California.

In the field of veterinary science we have selected research and scientific institutions dealing with, among other things, parasitology, veterinary cardiology, properties of erythrocytes, pharmacokinetics and anaesthesiology, as well as clinical veterinary microbiology. These institutions will be, for example, the Universities of Naples and Copenhagen. Taking part in the project will also enable us consult others in the area of niche research in Poland such as a range of vector diseases in animals.

In the case of zootechnics and fishing our selected institutions are multidisciplinary, mostly research-oriented and boasting outstanding research teams. Moreover, they possess equipment not readily available elsewhere, the access to which will enable us to increase the scientific level of our publications and doctoral theses. The partners in the field will be institutions such as Freie Universität Berlin And Wolf Park in Indiana.

The PROM program goals and objectives fit into the strategy of UPWr development by 2020 – creating conditions facilitating the mobility of academic staff and students within the framework of international educational and research projects carried out with institutions in and outside the European Union. UPWr is pursuing broad international cooperation in research and education creating scientific networks with other research institutions at home and abroad. It is also steadily increasing the mobility of doctoral students and academic staff. PROM is also in line with main objectives of UPWr efforts in the 2016-2020 term, as well as the University’s HR strategy which aims at supporting young academics.

The project is carried out by the International Relations Office under the Vice-Rector for Research and International Relations, professor Jarosław Bosy.