NEWS

CEMMPRE’s scientists in “World’s Top 2% Scientists 2022”

From the 55 scientists of Universidade de Coimbra in the list “World’s Top 2% Scientists 2022”, 10 belong to CEMMPRE

The list includes 200,000scientists, 763 belonging to Portuguese institutions, including 55 scientists from the University of Coimbra. The study distributes scientists by 22 scientific areas and 176 disciplines, considering their index, volume of publications and citations, according to the data available on Scopus in September 2022.

Mobility GT: Surfaces and interfaces for sustainable green mobility – call for 12 postdocs

This international programme involves 4 academic partners – it is coordinated by the Laboratory for Tribology and Interface Nanotechnology of the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) in cooperation with the University of Leeds (UK), Luleå University of Technology (Sweden) and University of Coimbra (Portugal) – and 50 associated partners, mainly from industry (e.g., Volvo, Scania, Oerlikon, SKF, Hidria, Kolektor, Mahle, Cummins, and others).
The programme will host 24 post-doctoral researchers, each with a 3-year contract. The annual salary available to each postdoc is a minimum of €69,360, or €77,280 for a postdoc who is entitled to a family allowance.
Mobility GT will be realised in two calls for two cohorts of 12 postdocs each. Half the positions in each cohort will initially focus on fundamental nanoscale research (at the University of Ljubljana), with the other half working on macroscale, application-oriented tribology research of materials, surfaces, coatings and lubrication at the University of Leeds, Luleå University of Technology or University of Coimbra). This will be followed by what will be an exciting, compulsory switch between the two length scales after 27 months (and includes a mandatory secondment at an intersectorial/industrial partner) as the “nanoscale” postdocs take what they have discovered to the macroscale, and the “macroscale” postdocs get the chance to look more deeply into their findings on the nanoscale. This means the postdocs will finish off with a 9-month academic secondment to complement the main period of research.
Each post-doc can propose their own project with bottom-up ideas, but in agreement with the host university. So preliminary contacts and a discussion with provisional mentors are mandatory.
The first call will be available on Jan 1st, 2023, with the submission deadline of a post-doc project proposal on May 31th, 2023. After an international review, led by six high-profile tribologists (including three Tribology Gold Medallists), the winning proposals will be announced in August 2023. After the necessary administrative procedures for the winning proposals, the first 12 post-docs will start in January 2024. The whole procedure will then be repeated, to recruit the next cohort of 12 post-docs, who will start in January 2025.
The Mobility GT post-docs, with their individual research projects, will be able to address major challenges in green tribology in the following research areas:

  • Nanoscale-based green lubrication and surface technology (Ljubljana)
  • Boundary films & tribochemical interfaces (Leeds)
  • Green lubrication for lightweight composites and lubrication modelling (Luleå)
  • Wear-resistant, low-friction, advanced surface coatings (Coimbra)

Several sub-areas have already been identified, leading to an initial, approximately 200 research directions being available to choose from, guided by 30 academic mentors, specialising in different research fields.

 

Doctoral INPhINIT Fellowships at CEMMPRE

la Caixa” Foundation’s Doctoral INPhINIT Fellowships support talented researchers of the future.

Thanks to this programme, it is possible to can carry out a doctorate at the best universities and research centres in Spain and Portugal. There are two types of INPhINIT fellowship:

  • Incoming: fellowships for researchers abroad to carry out a STEM discipline PhD in Spain or Portugal.
  • Retaining: fellowships for researchers to remain in Spain or Portugal and carry out a PhD in any discipline.
    Submit your application by 25 January 2023 for Incoming and by 16 February 2023 for Retaining.

Opportunities for Incoming fellowships at CEMMPRE:

Auxiliary Researcher – University of Coimbra, Department of Mechanical Engineering

It is hereby publicly announced, by Order of the Rector, Professor Amílcar Falcão, issued on 10/08/2022, the opening of an international selection tender, for the period of 30 working days, starting on the working day following the publication of this Notice in Diário da República (Official Journal of the Portuguese Republic). The aforementioned tender consists of 1 position in the career of Scientific Research, in the category of Auxiliary Researcher, under a public employment contract of indefinite duration, in the scientific area of Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Management for the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the University of Coimbra.

ISR – UC

The Institute of Systems and Robotics, based in the University of Coimbra (ISR-UC) is a private, non-profit research institution founded in 1992 with the global purpose of setting up a first class multi-disciplinary research team, able to carry out leading edge research in several important areas of science and technology, with a special emphasis in systems and robotics. ISR promotes advanced multidisciplinary R&D in the areas Mobile Autonomous Robotics, Intelligent Transportation Systems, Search and Rescue Robotics, Robotic Manipulation, Computer Vision, Medical Robotics, Assistive Technologies, Biomedical Engineering, Advanced Industrial Automation Technologies and Intelligent Energy Systems.

ISR was evaluated in 2018 by an FCT international panel with EXCELLENT.  Currently ISR integrates the Associated Laboratory ARISE – Advanced Production and Intelligent Systems. ISR gives special attention to international scientific research cooperation with centers of excellence, as well as to training and education Initiatives.  ISR has also developed strong links with industry, either existing national and international companies, or promoting the creation of spin-offs. Two of its spin-offs Optisigma and Perceive 3D received in 2015 SME AWARDS from the H2020 EU Program. ISR has a strong track-record in the publication in international top journals and conferences, as well as in participation in national and international R&D projects.

ISR-UC is organized in seven Activity Areas with significant scientific and technological synergies:

  • Human-Centered Mobile Robotics
  • Field Robotics
  • Medical Systems and Robotics
  • Computational Intelligence and Control
  • Artificial Perception and Cognition
  • Visual Perception Intelligent Energy Systems

The success of the unit relies on the existing strong collaboration across disciplinary boundaries, which allows the unit to tackle highly complex scientific and technological challenges. Regular workshops stimulate collaboration that will be a key tool for addressing complex multidisciplinary problems and integrating the knowledge towards cognitive systems, as well as knowledge dissemination. Many research proposals and ongoing projects require researchers to take advantage of the complementarity of skills of the researchers and partners, resulting in high quality publications and joint supervision of PhD Thesis. 

ISR has strong interaction with some of the best research centers around the World, participating in large international projects. ISR also participates in networks of excellence in the robotics area and wants to keep organizing scientific meetings at the highest level (e.g. IROS, ICRA, IEEE ITSC, ROMAN). 

The activities in the unit are highly interdisciplinary by nature with strong interaction between the activity areas. Moreover, ISR actively collaborates with the Faculty of Medicine, health institutions and research centers (CNC-Center for Neuroscience, Rehabilitation Rovisco Pais Hospital, IBILI- Optical and Biomedical Imaging and Life Sciences Institute) and a variety of high technology industries.

Training and education activities are of high importance in order to enable cross-fertilization and innovation across disciplinary boundaries. ISR plays an active role in several doctoral programmes and provides experimental and scientific guidance to a large number of MSc students. Furthermore, training and education is a key element for community building and the generation of an open and stimulating culture. The primary training and education activities will be supervision of students and mentoring of postdocs in an everyday basis but also exchange of researchers with high quality research centers in different periods of the year. The existing cooperation with national and international industry (e.g. Google, PSA Group, Efacec power and automation equipment, Portucel paper group, CIMPOR cement group, EDP Electric Utility, National Money Authority Casa da Moeda, Brisa Motorways, Schneider Electric, ABB Corporate Research, and WEG) is planned to be increased with joint projects. ISR also wants to keep promoting technology transfer and the creation of spin-offs associated with the development of research results with a large market potential.

The Institute of Systems and Robotics have been cooperating with IPN-Instituto Pedro Nunes (www.ipn.pt), a regional technology transfer organization from Coimbra, Portugal. The Vice President of IPN has been for the last 10 years asenior researcher of ISR, ensuring a strong link between ISR and IPN. IPN has a very successful incubator, being responsible for the creation of over 80 companies, and having won the first prize for best incubator at EU level. 

Centre for Mechanical Engineering, Materials, and Processes

CEMMPRE: Group A- Mechanical and Intelligent Manufacturing

CEMMPRE: Group A- Mechanical and Intelligent Manufacturing is mainly focused on:

  • Biomechanics and human mobility;
  • Damage analysis;
  • Industrial management (e.g. production planning and control, supply chains, innovation,
    project and operations management, simulation and optimization modeling, combinatorial optimization);
  • Robotics (e.g. collaborative robotic and additive manufacturing);
  • Inverse analysis; Mechanical behavior and design methodologies;
  • Modeling, simulation, and optimization of forming and additive processes;
  • Joining processes (e.g. conventional and solid-state welding processes).

CEMMPRE: Group B- Materials and Processes

CEMMPRE: Group B- Materials and Processes is mainly focused on:

  • Sustainable manufacturing processes (additive (3D e 4D) and replicative manufacturing, PVD, welding);
  • Surface & interface engineering (e.g. tribological coatings, protection and corrosion resistant coatings, bio-active modified surfaces with antimicrobial activity);
  • Sensors, biosensors, corrosion, bioelectrochemistry;
  • Polymers (e.g. biobased materials, biodegradable);
  • Nanomaterials (3D and 2D);
  • Environmental microbiotechnology (e.g. bacteria-metal interactions, microbiomes and genome mining, biological and synthetic polymers).

EITM Doctoral School: Info day for PhD Supervisors

Next Friday (November 11 at 2:00 pm in room I025) there will be a debriefing session on the EIT Manufacturing Doctoral School that may be of interest to the doctoral programs for which they are responsible and which I would like to thank your colleagues for sharing. involved as mentors.

FEUP has been involved since its inception in the ETI Manufacturing initiative, an interdisciplinary innovation community associated with the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), which brings together more than 75 leading European partners in the sectors of industry, education and research.

This innovation community develops activities in the Knowledge Triangle (according to the Education, Innovation and Market pillars) and has recently launched the first education programs.

The University of Porto (through FEUP) in partnership with Arts et Métiers Institute of Technology (FR), Grenoble Institute of Technology and Management (FR), Czech technical University of Prague (CZ), Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava (SL) and University of Tartu (EE), and with EIT Manufacturing, promoted the creation of the EIT Manufacturing Doctoral School, and the agreement for the creation of the school was signed by the 6 schools and by EIT Manufacturing at the end of 2020. The doctoral school was also recognized by the EIT through the EIT Label attribution.

The EITM Doctoral School does not intend to develop new doctoral programs, but rather to develop complementary programs to the doctoral programs offered by partner universities focused on innovation and entrepreneurship components.

This information session has the (remote) participation of Lucia Raimundo (responsible for the doctoral school at EIT Manufacturing) and two FEUP students who participate in the program, and aims to clarify fellow advisors about the objectives and advantages of motivating their students to participate in.

An online session is also planned for the 24th of November, for which you can register via the link.

3D ADDITIVE EXPO-Feira de impressão 3D e fabrico aditivo. 9 – 12 /11/2022 (10-19 h) – EXPOSALÃO – Batalha

The stand of CEMMPRE and IPN based on Knowledge as essential “parameter” of Additive Manufacturing, shows present and future research about Additive Manufacturing (Materials and Technologies) applied to mechanical components/systems/devices. The exhibition was supported by researchers on 3D additive manufacturing technologies of CEMMPRE, contributing to disseminate and share to the visitants their experience on the latest materials and additive manufacturing technologies. The exhibition provided an overview of the state of art, design & modeling research, creative practice, and innovation&enterprise in 3D additive technologies. A QUIZ about the basic concepts in this area will let to selected 5 people to a special free course that promotes the formation to sustainable work in manufacturing, that could be the starting of industrial PhD.

Auxiliary Researcher CEMMPRE

It is hereby publicly announced, by Order of the Rector, Professor Amílcar Falcão, issued on 22/07/2022, the opening of an international selection tender, for the period of 30 working days, starting on the working day following the publication of this Notice in Diário da República (Official Journal of the Portuguese Republic). The aforementioned tender consists of 1 position in the career of Scientific Research, in the category of Auxiliary Researcher, under a public employment contract of indefinite duration, in the scientific area of Mechanical Engineering for the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the University of Coimbra.