Over the last few years, the fields of life sciences and engineering sciences have mutually fertilized each other to a level, where cell biological samples have become major stimuli for engineers, and in turn novel technological inventions have become key driving forces that triggered discoveries in the life sciences. In the ENROL DP we want to push forward these ground-breaking developments by training next generation, multidisciplinary graduates for frontier research across faculties and disciplines at the interface of engineering and the life sciences. ENROL is an interdisciplinary Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND doctoral programme at Technische Universität Wien (TU Wien).
Our programme integrates/reunites a broad spectrum of scientific and technological fields related to molecular bioengineering, biophysics & biochemistry, biomechanics, biological imaging, biomaterials, computational modelling, and tissue engineering, offering the PhD students life-long flexibility for continued professional growth. Current limitations in our understanding of cellular interfaces are mainly due to the complexity of the natural environment of a cell, including tissue- or cell-type specific parameters. Furthermore, research on this topic has been hampered by technical and experimental challenges for the characterization of the surfaces and the cellular response, and by insufficient theoretical models. As a particular scientific focus, ENROL aims at engineering functional interfaces between inorganic and bio-organic systems in order to push them towards new levels of understanding and technological applications.
Who?
- At the date of recruitment, all candidates for an ESR position must be in the first four years (full-time equivalent research experience) of their research careers and must not hold a doctoral degree.
- The candidates must hold an internationally recognized master’s degree (or equivalent[1]) in one of the following subjects: physics, chemistry, mathematics, bionanotechnology, material and engineering sciences, computer science, or a related discipline. This will guarantee that the candidates have acquired fundamental education in a research area relevant to ENROL.
- All applicants have to comply with the Marie-Skłodowska Curie Mobility Rule; Recruited researchers can be of any nationality and must comply with the following mobility rule: they must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the recruiting beneficiary for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before their recruitment date.
The training programme will be coordinated by the EC in agreement with the Management Team (MT) and ENROL Team (ET). According to the TUW curriculum for doctoral studies, the ENROL ESRs will have to complete 18 ECTS points prior to the thesis defense. ESRs will plan this curriculum in coordination with their respective Thesis Advisory Committee (TAC) ensuring that 6 ECTS are covered by training in research skills, 6 ECTS by the mandatory training in transferable skills offered by ENROL and 3 ECTS completed through lab rotations, secondments in the partner organizations (industrial and academic) and the ENROL events. Submission of the thesis has to be in accordance with the respective faculty regulations.
Lab rotations internally at TUW will be mandatory for each ESR in order to obtain hands-on experience in a different research aspect of ENROL and to get acquainted with the topics of other core aspects of the programme (1 month in total). Participation in ENROL events which consist of programme meetings, two retreats, as well as two open-day events (ENROL Open Day & ENROL Ambassador Day) and the international ENROL conference.
Deadline: 31 December 2021.