¹û¶³´«Ã½ EuroTech PhD program

At ¹û¶³´«Ã½ we are proud to be a part of the EuroTech Universities Alliance, a strategic partnership of leading universities of science and technology in Europe, including DTU, EPFL, L'X, Technion, and TUM. Within EuroTech, we were already actively collaborating in the field of education (EuroTeQ) and in the EuroTechPostDoc programs. As of 2022, collaboration via PhD projects is added to this portfolio through the ¹û¶³´«Ã½ centrally funded EuroTech PhD program. The EuroTech PhD program encourages innovative and lasting partnerships, paving the way for joint publications, research applications, and collaborative research projects with our esteemed partners in EuroTech.

At ¹û¶³´«Ã½ we are proud to be a part of the EuroTech Universities Alliance, a strategic partnership of leading universities of science and technology in Europe, including DTU, EPFL, L'X, Technion, and TUM. Within EuroTech, we were already actively collaborating in the field of education (EuroTeQ) and in the EuroTechPostDoc programs. As of 2022, collaboration via PhD projects is added to this portfolio through the ¹û¶³´«Ã½ centrally funded EuroTech PhD program. The EuroTech PhD program encourages innovative and lasting partnerships, paving the way for joint publications, research applications, and collaborative research projects with our esteemed partners in EuroTech.

Program Criteria

  • Collaborative project: To be eligible for this program, the proposed PhD project must be a collaborative effort involving at least one other EuroTech partner institution (DTU, EPFL, L’X, Technion or TUM). This collaboration means that the PhD candidate should spend at least 6 months at the partner university within the 4-year trajectory. Both partners will provide supervision to the PhD candidate for the entire project, with a supervisor at the ¹û¶³´«Ã½ (Home University) and a co-supervisor at the Host University.
  • Financial support: The program provides funding of €50K per year per position for a 4-year PhD project. However, as the average annual salary of a PhD candidate is €75K (in 2024), this funding does not fully cover salary costs. Additionally, any extra expenses—such as housing during a six-month stay abroad, materials, equipment usage, maintenance and upgrades, conference visits, and tuition fees—must be covered by the hiring research group or through additional matching funds. This co-funding can come from the individual researcher, research groups, departments, ¹û¶³´«Ã½ institutes, EuroTech partner, or external partners (e.g. industry collaborators, in accordance with applicable IP rules). Priority is given to (financial and in kind) matching by the EuroTech partner. A letter of commitment for the co-funding must be added to the proposal.

Application Process

In the program, we will accept six PhD candidates per year, distributed across the nine different departments. Pre-selection is done per department; the exact process varies per department. Per application round, each department can send in one pre-selected application and these are checked for eligibility by the selection committee’s administrative office. The selection committee consists of the rector, Dean of the Graduate school, Director Scientific International Affairs, and three ¹û¶³´«Ã½ full professors representing the three domains (Basic Science; Engineering; Humans, Technology, Management & Design). If you are interested in applying for the next call, we recommend discussing the specific criteria and pre-selection process with your department dean. Furthermore, the deans of all departments will be responsible for advertising and distributing the call.

PhD candidate experience

The selected PhD candidates will enjoy a unique educational experience. They will be jointly supervised by researchers from ¹û¶³´«Ã½ and the EuroTech partner university, including a mandatory stay of at least 6 months at the partner university, allowing them to benefit from the expertise of both institutions. These candidates will be considered ¹û¶³´«Ã½-based PhD students, and they can take advantage of the ¹û¶³´«Ã½ PROOF program, which provides ample opportunities for personal and professional development. In addition, the ¹û¶³´«Ã½ funds the program with extra yearly training and exchange activities within the EuroTech context, such as visits to the EuroTech Brussels Office and working-across-borders training.

Successful PhD projects from the ¹û¶³´«Ã½ EuroTech PhD program

2022

Mark Cornelissen

Power exhaust in fusion reactors: Visualizing the role of flows

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Roger Jaspers (Applied Physics and Science ¹û¶³´«Ã½) Supervisor Partner University: Artur Perek and Basil Duval (EPFL, School of Basic Sciences)

Kristina Kröll

Digital design tools to boost the uptake of reused materials in circular building practices

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Torsten Schröder (Built Environment) Supervisor Partner University: Corentin Fivet (EPFL, School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering)

Glenn Weber

Combining microfluidics and mathematical modelling for precision oncology

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Federica Eduati (Biomedical Engineering) Supervisor Partner University: Christoph Merten (EPFL, School of Engineering)

Adaptive surfaces for switchable adhesion to biological species

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Danqing Liu (Chemical Engineering and Chemistry) Supervisor Partner University: Anne Ladegaard Skov (DTU, Chemical and Biochemical Engineering)

Lydia Tasiou

Low-rate error-correcting coding techniques for SRAM physically unclonable functions (CORTECH-4-PUF)

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Alex Alvarado (Electrical Engineering) Supervisor Partner University: Antonia Wachter-Zeh (TUM, School of Computation, Information and Technology)

Hannah van Iterson

Designing Embodied Sensing Systems for Preventive Healthcare

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Rong-Hao Liang (Industrial Design) Supervisor Partner University: Edwin En-Te Hwu (DTU, Health Technology, Drug Delivery and Sensing)

Hangyu Liu

Health illuminated: Quantified effects of light on health

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Karin Smolders (Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences) Supervisor Partner University: Marilyne Anderson (EPFL, School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering)

Fatih Tasyaran

Time-predictable platform for high-performance computing

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Geoffrey Nelissen (Mathematics and Computer Science) Supervisor Partner University: Marco Caccamo (TUM, School of Engineering and Design)

Ding Ge

Production of metal powder via dendritic electrodeposition

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Yali Tang (Mechanical Engineering) Supervisor Partner University: Wolfgang A. Wall (TUM, School of Engineering and Design)

2023

Bram Heijnen

Terahertz Spectroscopy for (Photo-)Electrochemistry

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Mariadriana Creatore and Jaime Gómez Rivas (Applied Physics and Science ¹û¶³´«Ã½); Supervisor Partner University: Aliaksandr Bandarenka and Elena Gubanova (TUM, School of Natural Sciences)

Julia Kaltenegger

Integrating symbolic and subsymbolic AI for multimodal data fusion and enrichment of Building Digital Twins with material performance information

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Ekaterina Petrova (Built Environment); Supervisor Partner University: André Borrmann (TUM, Civil, Geo and Environmental Engineering)

Jingchao Sui

A multiscale experimental–computational study of the mechanobiology of tissue shaping

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Nicholas Kurniawan (Biomedical Engineering); Supervisor Partner University: Christoph Meier (TUM, Computational Mechanics)

Bryan Acosta Angulo

Advanced characterization of advanced alkaline electrolysis (Alkali-ACE)

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Thijs de Groot (Chemical Engineering and Chemistry); Supervisor Partner University: Christodoulos Chatzichristodoulou (DTU, Energy Conversion and Storage)

Amgalan Sodnomai

InP based electronic-photonic co-integrated transmitter for mmw and sub-THz frequencies

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Idelfonso Tafur Monroy (Electrical Engineering), PhD candidate: Amgalan Sodnomay; Supervisor Partner University: Tom Keinicke Johansen (DTU, Space Research and Technology)

Sacha Prudon

Addressing rebound effects in home automation through alternative design aesthetics

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Lenneke Kuijer (Industrial Design); Supervisor Partner University: Daniela C.A. Pigosso (DTU, Civil and Mechanical Engineering)

Salar Alizad Poursaeidi

Next Generation University

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Marcel Bogers (Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences); Supervisor Partner University: Maria Theresa Norn (DTU, Centre for Technology Entrepreneurship)

Matteo Bertuzzo

The Fundamental Limits of DNA Data Storage

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Alberto Ravagnani (Mathematics and Computer Science); Supervisor Partner University: Eitan Yaakobi (Technion, Computer Science)

Anish Sridharan

From building digital twins to skill-dependent world models: an application to cooperative mobile robots

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Elena Torta (Mechanical Engineering); Supervisor Partner University: André Borrmann (TUM, Civil, Geo and Environmental Engineering)

2024

Scaffolding interdisciplinary teamwork: Potentials and obstacles

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Karolina Ionna Doulougeri and Jan van der Veen (Applied Physics and Science ¹û¶³´«Ã½) Supervisor Partner University: Hanne Loje (DTU)

Kalaivanan Amudhan

Advancing Bio-Based Composites Processing and Characterization for Sustainable Architectural Applications

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Marta Gil Pérez (Built Environment) Supervisor Partner University: Véronique Michaud (EPFL)

Programmable motile DNA-based nanorobots for immunological synapse modulation

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Tania Patiño Padial (Biomedical Engineering) Supervisor Partner University: Maartje Bastings (EPFL)

Göktuğ  Erçakır

CORNERSTONE - CarbOn membRaNEs foR SeparaTion Of greeN molEcules

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Fausto Gallucci (Chemical Engineering and Chemistry) Supervisor Partner University: Seyed Soheil Mansouri (DTU)

Mobilizing the flexibility of small customers via collaborative congestion management (FLEX-COLLAB)

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Nikolaos Paterakis (Electrical Engineering) Supervisor Partner University: Charalampos Ziras and Tilman Weckessern (DTU)

SOFT-TOUCH: Soft Technologies for Optimizing User-Centric Haptics

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Anke van Oosterhout (Industrial Design) Supervisor Partner University: Jamie Paik (EPFL)

Enriching Business Model Analysis of Energy Transition Solutions with a Regulatory Assessment.

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Sybren de Kinderen (Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences) Supervisor Partner University: Hugo Andrés López-Acosta (DTU)

Leveraging Continual Learning for a Sustainable Predictive Process Monitoring

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Marwan Hassani (Mathematics and Computer Science) Supervisor Partner University: Andrea Burattin (DTU)

Stefan van Laarhoven

Advanced atomization for the production of metal powder

Supervisor ¹û¶³´«Ã½: Giulia Finotello (Mechanical Engineering) Supervisor Partner University: René van Hout (Technion)

Contact

For any questions regarding the program, feel free to send an e-mail to Nathalie Thielen from the Research Support Office.