1. Management
The Steering Committee (SC) was responsible for strategic decisions concerning the programme. SC was comprised of representatives from each partner institution, the coordinator, the director of the programme and one representative of the ESRs. The SC meetings were arranged to evaluate the status of the doctoral programme and address matters raised by partners or by ESRs.
The quality of the career guidance has been ensured by applying the same standardized supervision and monitoring scheme for each student. For each ESR, at least one senior researcher performing successful research acts as the primary supervisor. To enable a balanced and broad, but at the same time in-depth training of the ESRs and to promote the knowledge transfer between the partners, one or more co-supervisors from the same or different partner institutions have been also nominated. The ESRs are part of one local research group, where monitoring tools for the individual research projects and training are in place, such as regular presentation in group seminars and written reports.
2. Selection and evaluation
The recruitment process targeted talented and highly motivated Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) from all over the world. The selection and evaluation process contained the following stages
1. Eligibility check
2. Peer-review evaluation
3. Interview
4. Final selection
The Steering Committee performed a final review of the 15 top-ranked applicants and assessed if all the research focus areas covered by the doctoral programme were represented in a balanced way. 15 applicants were selected to the doctoral programme and employed by the partnering institutions.
3. Training and dissemination
At the programme level, BioMEP has provided training activities in the field of biomedical engineering and medical physics in a series of events. BioMEP students have attended courses provided by all the partner organizations. Thus, the ESRs have benefitted from the opportunities derived from the participation in the BioMEP beyond what each partner institution will provide individually.
Each ESR made a personal career development plan together with their supervisors covering research project proposal, scientific objectives, and schedule of envisaged courses, secondments, and as well long-term career planning. The ESRs were encouraged to have at least one secondment/internship to another partner organization and/or private sector collaborator. The secondments were strongly promoted by the doctoral programme. Altogether 14 secondments and 8 research visits took place during the programme.
All research publications made in the BioMEP doctoral programme were open access. During the programme period, 43 peer-reviewed scientific articles were published. BioMEP ESRs have attended numerous conferences, seminars, and workshops during the programme. The ESRs have attended events 138 times and held 47 poster presentations in addition to 85 oral presentations. All public defences of dissertations were advertised on the BioMEP website and Facebook page and streamed online for the general public.
Two provisional patent applications were submitted in the programme period.
4. Ethics
The Advisory Board carried out the analysis of ethical aspects. The objective of this Board was to make sure that BioMEP does not support research which would be contrary to ethical principles, and if the procedures to prevent ethical issues described in the project (including candidates’ research project) are in agreement with the hosting institution ethical Policies. During the programme, the ethics monitoring was continuously performed by the supervisors and follow-up groups of the fellows. No ethical issues needed to be declared.
