Final Report Summary - ABCDE (Alain Bensoussan Career Development Enhancer)
161 postdoctoral research fellowships have been granted in the frame of the ERCIM ABCDE Fellowship Programme, from September 2010 to August 2015. The programme has enabled bright young scientists from all over the world to work on a challenging problem as fellows of leading European research centres.
The research carried out by the ABCDE fellows and their supervisors has significantly contributed to the knowledge in ICT and applied mathematics in Europe. The research results are presented in around 420 publications, in this way disseminating the results as well as the ABCDE programme. Furthermore, the fellows have thus become agents who can forward improvements and innovations based on their new insights.
With the support from the FP7 Marie Curie Actions - People, Co-funding of Regional, National and International Programmes (COFUND) of the European Union, the impact of this co-funding was an increase of almost 40% in the number of ERCIM fellows per annum compared to the previous Fellowship programme ERCIM has operated since 1992. Also, the duration of the fellowships has been extended so that applicants could benefit from one or two periods of twelve months spent in one or two ERCIM member institutes. Additionally, employment conditions were improved, with the option of signing working contracts instead of stipend agreements. Another important novelty was the annual “ABCDE seminar” where fellows had the opportunity to benefit from specific training on a range of non-scientific skills and get inspiration to forward their entrepreneurial and innovative attitudes.
In addition to the research outcome, the focus of the programme was the mobility of researchers for the benefit of the European Research Area. The programme itself has a transnational dimension by definition: the hosting institutes are located in many different European countries and the conditions of the programme required international mobility of the fellows. The research topics covered all subjects related to Informatics, Computer Science and Applied Mathematics.
The high number of awarded fellows was one criterion to measure the success of this programme. Another important impact of the “COFUND” support is that the fellowship programme has significantly widened its scope. We have attracted highly talented people from and outside Europe and given them our best ERCIM scientific hosts throughout Europe to foster their own research interests. New scientific cooperation among fellows and research institutes across Europe has been largely developed with the support of the ABCDE project.
The objectives were met! In competition with the US and other global areas, ABCDE attracted a high number of excellent scientists to Europe. They gained new insights, fostered cooperation within the European ICT community and our partners and hosting institutes supported them in their own research agenda. However, the biggest compliment is the high degree of satisfaction of the fellows. They all told us that they would recommend the programme to a colleague.
List of host organisations
• Academy of Sciences - Institute of Information Theory and Automation (UTIA), Czech Republic
• Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica, The Netherlands
• Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy
• CRP Henri Tudor, Luxemburg
• Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Angewandten Forschung e.v. Germany
• Fundacion IMDEA Software, Spain
• Inria, France
• Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Számítástechnikai és Automatizálási Kutatóintézet, Hungary
• Masaryk University Faculty of Informatics and Institute of Computer Science (MUNI), Czech Republic
• Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway
• SBA Research, Austria
• SICS Swedish Institute of Computer Science AB, Sweden
• Universidad Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
• Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
• Université du Luxembourg, Luxembourg
• Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• University of Cyprus, Cyprus
• University of Salzburg - Department of Computer Science, Austria
• University of Warsaw - Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics, and Mechanics, Poland
• University of Wroclaw, Poland
• Valtion Teknillinen Tutkimuskeskus, Finland
Link: https://fellowship.ercim.eu/home/abcde
The research carried out by the ABCDE fellows and their supervisors has significantly contributed to the knowledge in ICT and applied mathematics in Europe. The research results are presented in around 420 publications, in this way disseminating the results as well as the ABCDE programme. Furthermore, the fellows have thus become agents who can forward improvements and innovations based on their new insights.
With the support from the FP7 Marie Curie Actions - People, Co-funding of Regional, National and International Programmes (COFUND) of the European Union, the impact of this co-funding was an increase of almost 40% in the number of ERCIM fellows per annum compared to the previous Fellowship programme ERCIM has operated since 1992. Also, the duration of the fellowships has been extended so that applicants could benefit from one or two periods of twelve months spent in one or two ERCIM member institutes. Additionally, employment conditions were improved, with the option of signing working contracts instead of stipend agreements. Another important novelty was the annual “ABCDE seminar” where fellows had the opportunity to benefit from specific training on a range of non-scientific skills and get inspiration to forward their entrepreneurial and innovative attitudes.
In addition to the research outcome, the focus of the programme was the mobility of researchers for the benefit of the European Research Area. The programme itself has a transnational dimension by definition: the hosting institutes are located in many different European countries and the conditions of the programme required international mobility of the fellows. The research topics covered all subjects related to Informatics, Computer Science and Applied Mathematics.
The high number of awarded fellows was one criterion to measure the success of this programme. Another important impact of the “COFUND” support is that the fellowship programme has significantly widened its scope. We have attracted highly talented people from and outside Europe and given them our best ERCIM scientific hosts throughout Europe to foster their own research interests. New scientific cooperation among fellows and research institutes across Europe has been largely developed with the support of the ABCDE project.
The objectives were met! In competition with the US and other global areas, ABCDE attracted a high number of excellent scientists to Europe. They gained new insights, fostered cooperation within the European ICT community and our partners and hosting institutes supported them in their own research agenda. However, the biggest compliment is the high degree of satisfaction of the fellows. They all told us that they would recommend the programme to a colleague.
List of host organisations
• Academy of Sciences - Institute of Information Theory and Automation (UTIA), Czech Republic
• Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica, The Netherlands
• Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy
• CRP Henri Tudor, Luxemburg
• Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Angewandten Forschung e.v. Germany
• Fundacion IMDEA Software, Spain
• Inria, France
• Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Számítástechnikai és Automatizálási Kutatóintézet, Hungary
• Masaryk University Faculty of Informatics and Institute of Computer Science (MUNI), Czech Republic
• Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway
• SBA Research, Austria
• SICS Swedish Institute of Computer Science AB, Sweden
• Universidad Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
• Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
• Université du Luxembourg, Luxembourg
• Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• University of Cyprus, Cyprus
• University of Salzburg - Department of Computer Science, Austria
• University of Warsaw - Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics, and Mechanics, Poland
• University of Wroclaw, Poland
• Valtion Teknillinen Tutkimuskeskus, Finland
Link: https://fellowship.ercim.eu/home/abcde