“Machines don’t solve problems; humans solve them together!”
The EITM 2021 Winter School is addressing “bigger than life” challenges: unfold and produce everywhere with carbon-neutral manufacturing .. even in Mars!
Inspired in the new European Bauhaus initiative, the EITM 2021 Winter School will bring down walls between science and technology, art, culture and social inclusion. If you are a PhD student and you want to boost skills and competencies that are needed to find solutions for complex everyday problems, you should participate to the 2021 Winter School of the EIT Manufacturing (EITM) Doctoral School which is focused on how industry can benefit from the acceleration of the twin green and digital transitions to build a more sustainable and resilient society and economy.
This is an exceptional opportunity for intercultural, cross-organizational mobility and interdisciplinary views, embedded in a unique, trans-sectoral pan-European network. The proposed programme consists of an integrated innovative “learning-by-doing” curricula on the crossroads of several disciplines, covering Science, Technology and Arts. Students will be faced with a big-challenge to be tackled by medium size multidisciplinary teams (7-8 members).
The winter school schedule includes company visits and networking events with start-ups/entrepreneurs and a session held in collaboration with the actors from the local innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, but also traditional Porto culture and gastronomy.
The EITM Winter School will be the opportunity for self-driven, ambitious PhD candidates to broaden their network with potential European partners and to boost their abilities and competencies in advanced tools for the design, implementation, organization, quality assessment and improvement of intelligent manufacturing systems.
The Winter School program will be based on challenges that students will address in teams allowing you not only to deepen your Technological & Scientific knowledge, but also to improve your innovation, entrepreneurship skills and employability.
The 2021 winter school will implement a (big) challenge-based approach. Participants will be asked to collaboratively address a societal challenge and creatively use their scientific/technology knowledge to propose a solution, whilst developing their leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship skills. The first element is an online onboarding starting on November 15th. The onboarding will be fully digital (set of SPOCs and online workshops) to bring all participants to a level playing field in the innovation, entrepreneurship and scientific/technological aspects required for the winter school challenge.
The second element is based on on-line collaboration and mentoring. Between the onboarding and the on-site activities, teams will be working on their challenge remotely in “virtual hackthons”. This is done collaboratively with the support of designated mentors and will provide material for the on-site part of the winter school.
The third and final element is on-site event with a duration of one week that will take place in Porto between the 22nd and the 26th November. The winter school will culminate in a networking afternoon where the participants present their results and get exposure to investors and potential clients.
The EIT Manufacturing Winter School starts remotely (15th of November) with workshops where big challenges will be discussed and students collaboratively will start to work on their solutions. During the “presential week” (22nd-26th November) students work together with local mentors to translate their ideas into a feasible business solution. The winter school includes lectures and workshops with hands-on training on: agile project management, design thinking, sustainability, digitalisation, etc.
Timetable
15th November – Welcome, program and big-challenge pitch.
15-19 November – Workshops on agile project management, design thinking, sustainability, digitalization; virtual hackathons.
28-30 November – Keynotes, lectures, big challenge based hackathon, pitch, get-together and more.
Students will start working on the challenge upfront (between the 15th and 19th November) and at the same time will be exposed to several new concepts via SPOCs. During the Winter School, students will work under the supervision of different mentors from different knowledge areas (e.g. engineering, architecture, biology, arts, ..) and will be challenged to use all their creativity to propose an innovative solution that could contribute to the “Sustainability, Resilience and Human-Centricity in Industry” and to further explore how the future of industry will look like. Collaborative platforms (e.g. MS Teams, GitHub, etc.) will be to promote distributed collaborative work, team building and leadership.
Students in teams will have to present the results of their work to a panel of invited I&E experts from the partner universities, industrial partners and invited guests. After the winter school students will be asked to reflect on their experience and write a 2-pager essay that will be made available to the EITM DS community.
The full program will be available shortly
Experts and mentors involved in the Winter School include Alvo Aabloo (UTARTU), Martin Mares (CTU), Martin Juhas (STUBA), Martin Gulan (STUBA), Foudil Meraghni (ENSAM), Mark Lassagne (ENSAM), Daniel Brissaud (G INP), Peggy Zwolinski (G INP), Valerie Rochi (G INP), Gil Gonçalves (FEUP), Hugo Ferreira (FEUP), etc.
Applications are open to PhD candidates, researchers and students with relevant background in the innovation processes and sustainable manufacturing and professionals from companies, people connected to smart manufacturing, i.e start-ups and company employees.
As applicant you need to prepare: a CV, a motivation letter, documents showing your academic track records and apply at EIT-M Doctoral School Portal
The EITM Doctoral Scientific and Industrial Committee will review the application materials through a competitive selection process based on the scientific excellency and the academic qualification of the applicants. A waiting list will be organized among the applicants
Selected participants will be contacted by the EIT Manufacturing Doctoral School office to complete their enrolment. In case of withdrawal, candidates from the waiting list will be contacted in order to fill all available seats.
Main fee: 1000€
PhD Students and professionals from EIT Manufacturing partners & RIS students fee: 500€
PhD Students and professional from SIC* members: free of charge
Special offer for women PhD students in RIS countries universities: free of charge
NOTE: The Winter School fee can also be paid by a sponsor, please read carefully the other requirement section for more information.
*Scientific and Industrial Committee members contributing to the Winter School program