The Cyprus Institute has received funding exceeding 3.5 Million euros and will offer 20 fellowships to talented PhD students for an innovative doctoral program aimed at educating the next generation of computational physicists and engineers in using advanced computer technologies.  

The project, funded under the Marie Curie-Sklodowska Action COFUND program of Horizon 2020 Framework Program, is called “Enabling the next generation of computational physicists and engineers” (ENGAGE), and envisions a unique and highly interdisciplinary program of PhD studies combining interdisciplinary expertise in High Performance Computing (HPC), quantum computing  and data science to solve domain-specific problems in physics and engineering by taking advantage the rapid progress in computer technologies. The duration of the ENGAGE program is 60 months and will offer a total of 20 fellowships to qualified PhD students from across Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean.

ENGAGE brings together some of Europe’s best universities from Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Germany and France, renowned for their graduate programs in physics and engineering, and links to leading major accelerator facilities (DESY in Germany, ESRF in France and SESAME in Jordan), the computational center at The Cyprus Institute, and industrial consortia in Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. The training program will teach students to use mathematical modelling, design scalable algorithms, understand computer architectures, use neural networks and deep learning, and understand the principles of QC. Beyond training for acquiring these interdisciplinary competencies, the students will learn to exploit these skills to solve complex problems that advance our understanding of nature and lead to innovative applications.

“The ENGAGE program further develops and strengthens our internationally successful doctoral programme at The Cyprus Institute. The involvement of institutions from different countries will help consolidate expertise and educational practices across Europe, and cross-fertilize ideas in a multi-cultural and multi-lingual setting. The ENGAGE program, thus, goes beyond what traditionally can be realized in a discipline-specific department, consolidating expertise from multiple institutions and research applications”, said Prof. George Christophides, CyI President. 

The Cyprus Institute is the lead beneficiary of the project, and will coordinate ENGAGE training activities through its Computation-based Science and Technology Research Center (CaSToRC) under the direction of Institute Professor Constantia Alexandrou, drawing on its experience with its existing interdisciplinary PhD program in Computational Sciences and coordination of two European Joint Doctorates (EJDs). Assist. Profs. Giannis Koutsou and Nikos Savva as well as the scientific coordinator at CaSToRC Andreas Gavrielides have greatly contributed to the idea and writing of the proposal.