Imperial -TUM Joint Academy of Doctoral Studies (JADS)

The first cohort with the theme of 'Artificial Intelligence, Healthcare and Robotics' launched in October 2020 with six joint projects selected for the programme.

JADS project news: New AI technology protects patient privacy in healthcare settings

Call for 2021 Cohort

This call invited Principal Investigators (PIs) at TUM and Imperial to jointly put forward a research project to be underpinned by 1 doctoral candidate at TUM and 1 doctoral candidate at Imperial, which included joint supervision plans and a built-in mobility programme.

The cohort starting in 2021  focused on the theme of “Mathematics of Information: Theory and Application”.  This year’s JADS theme aimed to enable innovative work in the areas of machine learning, statistics and dynamics, as well as to connect this work to applications in other research areas. Recent years have seen a confluence of these fields and their ideas, for example triggered by big data problems, uncertainty quantification and randomness in evolution. There has been an exchange of ideas and techniques across these fields, and there is a mutual stimulation between theoretical and application-driven approaches.

This JADS cohort created an environment where this cross-fertilisation could flourish, bringing together complementary expertise from Imperial College London and Technical University of Munich in the fields of stochastic analysis, random dynamical systems, statistics, numerical analysis, optimal control and their applications. Applications occured across the full spectrum of science and technology, for example in mobility, life sciences and medicine, fluid and solid mechanics, manufacturing and advanced materials, finance and insurance, computer vision and graphics.

As machine learning, uncertainty quantification and other tools from mathematical information can be applied in many different disciplines, the initiative especially encouraged interdisciplinary projects that connect mathematics foundational insights to relevant applications.

Supervisors and candidates in the training programme benefitred from access to each other's labs, innovation ecosystems, industry engagement, and other complementary expertise and training provided to the cohort.

Selected projects recruited doctoral candidates between June and August 2021, and started in October 2021, when the cohort launched, running for four years of doctoral studies at TUM and three or four years at Imperial, depending on the level of students recruited.

Key Elements and Criteria for the Call

• Joint applications from researchers[1] at Imperial and TUM, focused on projects in the area of Mathematics of Information: Theory and Application; 
• The same PI cannot submit more than two project proposals;
• Candidates will be expected to spend at least 12 months at the partner university;
• Each selected project is to be supervised by 2 PIs (one at Imperial & one at TUM);
• All doctoral candidates attend a subject-specific curriculum;
• Annual joint “JADS Symposium,” organised by IGSSE (at TUM) and Imperial College London; and
• Joint thesis examination committee.
  [1] N.B. Please note that at Imperial, only researchers who are permanent members of staff who can supervise PhD students, and at TUM only researchers whose contract extends beyond the four-year funding period and who can act as doctoral supervisors, can be named as Principal Investigators.

Number of Doctoral Projects and Funding

The scheme aimed to support a total of up to 6 joint doctoral projects for four years at TUM and three to four years at Imperial, depending on the level of student recruited. The projects were selected by TUM and Imperial College’s joint committee (see point 6 below). Each project was underpinned by two PIs (one from TUM, one from Imperial) and two doctoral candidates (again, one from TUM and one from Imperial).

Applicants were supported through their individual institutions, on the basis of doctoral training stipends and relevant mobility and consumables funds. At TUM, the funding for JADS studentships, mobility, and related support was allocated via the IGSSE. At Imperial, the funding for the studentship was allocated by departments, faculties, CDTs, DTPs, or other research groups.  Hence Imperial applicants must have approval from their Head of Department, director of the CDT, director of the DTP, or director of the research group in question to apply and to commit a studentship for the Imperial portion of the project. Imperial contributed £2K per year per three-year project, for a total of £6K per project, to support mobility.  Imperial PIs could apply to the Imperial-TUM Collaboration Fund for additional support for the projects.

Call Timeline

Call Opened: 10 February 2021
Call Closed: 05 April 2021
Notification Date: 31 May 2021
Start of PhD projects: October 2021

Evaluation

Proposals were independently reviewed and ranked by an Imperial-TUM Joint Committee, according to the following criteria:

• Scientific quality & originality of the project
• Scientific merit of the teams
• Interdisciplinarity
• Impact of the research in and beyond the field
• Convincing plan for implementing collaboration and co-supervision of doctoral candidates
• Demonstrated track record of support and mentorship of doctoral candidates (if PIs have previously supervised doctoral candidates)
• Sustainability, e.g. identification of potential funding sources to grow and extend research projects
• How to Submit a Project Proposal

PIs from Imperial and TUM jointly prepared and submitted the fully completed Application Form, in electronic format (Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF), and submitted it via this online application portal. Applicants should follow the relevant guidance notes in the Application Form.  Application Forms need to be received at the end of the day the call closes in order to be considered.

Reporting Requirements

It will be expected for successful proposals to produce a yearly report on the activities carried out, visits and workshops attended, based on the work-plans outlined in Section E of the Application Form.

The cohort starting in 2022 will focus on the theme of “Circular Economy,” and will run for four years of doctoral studies at TUM and three years at Imperial.

The Circular Economy (CE) pursues sustainability goals through closing, slowing, and narrowing material flows, and changing economic patterns. Applications within the energy space are particularly welcome. Achieving a CE also demands for energy transitions, requiring comprehensive interdisciplinary research connecting especially subjects such as material and engineering sciences, energy provision and storage as well as management and economics.

With this proposed theme, we aimed to encourage a range of interdisciplinary projects from across our two institutions’ faculties and schools, as solving these challenges will require innovative thinking which often bridges disciplines and focuses on CE aspects of energy transitions. The theme encourages important research projects that move us towards planetary health and an industry and society complying with planetary boundaries through protecting resources, avoiding wastes, providing and storing energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and decoupling economic growth from adverse environmental impacts. The projects may focus on but are not limited to:

• Technologies for CE (e.g. electro-chemistry/batteries/hydrogen)
• Critical raw materials for CE
• Material asset tracking for CE
• Design for recyclability and standardisation in CE
• Innovative business models for CE
• Modelling and assessment of CE concept and systems
• Process optimization for CE
• Forward and reverse logistics for CE
• Recycling technologies for CE
• Urban/industrial mining of materials for CE
• User behaviour in CE

Cooperation and leveraging synergies between the individual projects is encouraged and expected.

Practically, the theme builds on some of the collaborative seed-funded projects underway between Imperial and TUM, which provides a good way for these collaborations to scale-up. The theme also links to institutional initiatives already underway such as Transition to Zero Pollution at Imperial, the TUM sustainability strategy and CirculaTUM, the research, teaching and transfer platform for the Circular Economy at TUM, as well as broader EU and UK goals to reach climate neutrality or net zero by 2050 and offer a sustainable way out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Supervisors and candidates in the training programme will benefit from access to each other's labs, innovation ecosystems, industry engagement, and other complementary expertise and training provided to the cohort.

Key Elements and Criteria for the Call

• Joint applications from researchers at Imperial and TUM, focused on projects in the area of Circular Economy;
• The same PI cannot submit more than two project proposals;
• Candidates will spend 12 months at the partner university over the course of the PhD programme;
• Each selected project is to be supervised by 2 PIs (one at Imperial & one at TUM);
• All doctoral candidates attend a subject-specific curriculum;
• Annual joint “JADS Symposium,” organised by IGSSE (at TUM) and Imperial; and
• Joint thesis examination committee (but not joint degree -- Imperial students will receive an Imperial degree, and TUM students receive a TUM degree)

4. Number of Doctoral Projects and Funding

The projects were selected by TUM and Imperial’s joint committee (see point 6 below). Each project is underpinned by two PIs (one from TUM, one from Imperial) and two doctoral candidates (again, one from TUM and one from Imperial).

Applicants will be supported through their individual institutions, on the basis of doctoral training stipends and relevant mobility and consumables funds.

N.B. Please note that at Imperial, only researchers who are permanent members of staff, and at TUM, only researchers whose contract extends beyond the four-year funding period and who can act as doctoral supervisors, can be named as Principal Investigators.

At TUM, the funding for JADS studentships, mobility, and related support is allocated via the IGSSE.
At Imperial, funding for the three-year studentship must be allocated by departments, faculties, CDTs, DTPs, or other research groups. The central College will use a I3 Research England grant to contribute the equivalent of 25% of the studentship (home fees rate) per each of the projects selected (over 3 years the 25% contribution is just over £18K). These funds can be used to pay for 25% of the tuition and stipend fees, or as a studentship top-up for other uses, e.g for mobility for PIs and PhD students, research project consumables, workshops, or other related costs to support the project. As mobility is a key feature of this collaboration, PIs will be expected to identify funds to support mobility. Given that co-investment is required to apply, Imperial applicants must submit confirmation of available studentship funding from their Head of Department, director of the CDT, director of the DTP, or director of the research group in question, as part of the application. Imperial PhD students participating in JADS can apply to the Global Fellows Fund for mobility funding for the projects.

Given the timing of the call, we anticipated that Imperial PIs will already have made offers to PhD candidates and apply for this programme with those potential PhD students and funding in mind as they develop a collaborative project with TUM colleagues. At TUM, as the funding and recruitment process is different, the recruitment of PhD candidates will likely happen once the successful projects are selected.

5. Call Timeline

Call Opened: 17 March 2022
Call Closed: 24 April 2022
Notification Date: end of May 2022
Start of PhD projects: October 2022

6. Evaluation

Proposals were independently reviewed and ranked by an Imperial-TUM Joint Committee, according to the following criteria:
● Scientific quality & originality of the project
● Scientific merit of the teams
● Interdisciplinarity
● Impact of the research in and beyond the field
● Convincing plan for implementing collaboration and co-supervision of doctoral candidates
● Demonstrated track record of support and mentorship of doctoral candidates (if PIs have previously supervised doctoral candidates)
● Sustainability, e.g. identification of potential funding sources to grow and extend research projects

7. Reporting Requirements

It will be expected for successful proposals to produce a yearly report on the activities carried out, visits and workshops attended, based on the work-plans outlined in Section F of the Proposal Form.

Academic Leads for the ‘Circular Economy’ theme:

● Imperial College London – Dr. Marco Aurisicchio
● Technical University of Munich – Prof. Magnus Fröhling