QUSTEC: international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral doctoral programme in Quantum Science and Technologies

Project Information

QUSTEC

Grant agreement ID: 847471

DOI

10.3030/847471

Project closed

EC signature date 7 May 2019

Start date 15 May 2019

End date 14 July 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 8 461 440,00

EU contribution

€ 4 230 720,00

Coordinated by

EUCOR - THE EUROPEAN CAMPUS
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - QUSTEC (QUSTEC: international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral doctoral programme in Quantum Science and Technologies)

Reporting period: 2023-05-15 to 2025-07-14

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The main objective of the cross-border doctoral programme QUSTEC was to train the cohort of doctoral researchers in an international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral setting. QUSTEC aimed at closing the gap in the increasing need for a highly trained workforce in the emerging European QST domain. This was achieved by combining the fundamental research training with exposure to the industrial sector and comprehensive transferrable skills training.
The coordinator of the programme was the Eucor – The European Campus, and PhD projects were implemented at the partner organisations: University of Basel University of Freiburg, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and University of Strasbourg – all four are members of Eucor – and Walther-Meißner-Institut and IBM Research Europe.
The QUSTEC programme identified four Grand Challenges situated at the forefront of modern quantum science and technology: (I) Understanding decoherence, (II) Engineering better qubits, (III) Enabling technologies, (IV) Emergent quantum matter. The research training offer was developed to tackle those scientific challenges.
The QUSTEC programme was fully committed to promoting the careers of women in the QST field, QUSTEC hosted 10 female PhD candidates out of 37.
The QUSTEC programme followed the best practices of the MSCA in terms of providing innovative doctoral training. The PhD candidates were prepared to enter the academic research careers, and also be ready to enter the industrial domain, to pursue the research entrepreneurship endeavour or to join the policymaking domain.
In conclusion, QUSTEC successfully contributed to
• the training and career development of the participating PhD-fellows since they benefit from the joint courses, networking, and experiences.
• the enhancement of research in the QST field and the development of new data, research results and application opportunities in the areas of the Grand Challenges stated above.
• the establishment of closer links between the participating institutions, associated partners and further entities that will spark new opportunities for further cooperation.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

All activities were developed along the following axes:
- Calls for applications and the recruitment stage,
- Implementation of the training programme,
- Networking and stakeholder engagement.
The recruitment process was organised over three calls. 37 PhD candidates joined the programme.
Independent evaluators were engaged at each step of the selection process.
Each PhD project was overseen by the Individual Training Panel (ITP), each ESR set up a Personal Career Development Plan (PCDP). The PCDP was validated by the ITP and anually updated. In addition to supervision by the ITP and by hosting lab members, the fellows had the opportunity to seek the advice of the QUSTEC Training managers, Prof. Shannon Whitlock and Prof. Tobias Schätz.
The training programme at QUSTEC was multi-layered with a 3-tiered structure. It consisted of the primary training in the hosting research team from the nurturing phase to scientific independence over four years. The second tier represented the core training offer at the QUSTEC programme, including scientific and transferable skills training (TST). The third tier was focused on the intersectoral and cross-border exchanges in the form of secondments, short-term visits, and collaborative projects.
In consequence, each fellow has acquired over the course of the programme an individual blend of joint training activities, yearly summer schools and local offers. These are detailed in an annex to the final report and highlight the taylor-made and personalised character of the training programme.
The network activities offering different channels of communication as well as low-key and socialising events to the fellows played a very important role in the cohesion of such an extended and interdisciplinary programme.
Except for the networking between senior and junior researchers in the QUSTEC programme, its cross-border setting and alignment with core activities of Eucor provided ample opportunity for synchronisation of the partner organisation policies regarding doctoral training. Notably, a series of meetings were organised between the representatives of the graduate schools and the Eucor office, as well as between the Research Data services.
The completion of the PhD theses presents a very substantial body of new research results and their subsequent publication, covering very broadly the various areas of quantum science and technology from quantum computing, sensing, communication to fundamental quantum physics and quantum engineering and technology. This is addressing some of the grand challenges in quantum sciences and technologies today

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The main expected impact of the QUSTEC programme was enhancing the future career prospects of researchers in the emerging QST field and strengthening human resources, in particular, in the Upper Rhine region.
The second impact related to the COFUND setting and consisted of transferring the best practices of the MSCA programme to the local graduate school programmes, and vice versa. In this respect, the bottom-up and top-down approaches were combined.
The impact achieved through the implementation of the QUSTEC initial phase, mostly concerned the visibility of the emerging quantum sciences hub in the Upper Rhine region, since QST is one of four focus areas that have been defined by the presidencies of the Eucor member universities.
Furthermore, the QUSTEC programme contributed to intensifying the institutional cooperation in various fields that are relevant for innovative doctoral training, like providing Open Access to science and research data, conducting ethically responsible research, providing equal opportunities, promoting gender balance, and improving outreach to society.
Regarding its European and international impact, the programme was advertised on multiple occasions and contributed to the attractivity of the European Research and Higher Education Areas. The calls for application had indeed wide international outreach thanks to our dissemination efforts, the international networks of the partner research teams and thanks to resources provided by the European Commission (e.g. EURAXESS platform and QT.eu platform). On the European level, the QUSTEC programme has become a role model for alliances of European universities , since some of them also seek to establish such joint doctoral programmes. QUSTEC was well connected to other projects and activities in QST among the Eucor member universities, such as the joint professorship in Quantum Computing between the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the University of Strasbourg or the UpQuantVal project funded by Interreg which links academia to businesses in the Upper Rhine region. Finally, QUSTEC led to the establishment of a new doctoral programme in the Quantum Sciences – Gen-Q – which involves additional partners and will start in October 2025. The graduates of the programme are excellently trained to now feeding the great and strongly growing need for the quantum work force across all sectors, from academic to industry and startups as well as educational and outreach areas.

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