With PANTHER to the southern hemisphere even for junior researchers

A recruitment orientation was held for new PhD and postdoctoral scholarships in Australian and New Zealand universities under the PANTHER initiative.

"The Erasmus Mundus Action has been a tool of the EU to promote European higher education internationally across several framework programmes. BME has been participating in it and submitting successful applications to the offered international MSc programmes, and thematic PhD and postdoctoral scholarships from the beginning. We are determined to help as many talented young researchers as possible to test themselves internationally by relying on this fund", emphasized Krisztina László, vice-rector of BME for international affairs.

"The PANTHER (Pacific Atlantic Network for Technical Higher Education and Research) exchange programme offers great opportunities for BME’s PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and researchers to become part of the international scientific networks", confirmed professor Rita Kiss, deputy head of BME GPK’s Department of Mechatronics, Optics and Information Engineering, the programme’s coordinator at BME. There are eight universities from Australia, New Zealand, and the European Union participating in the initiative. The programme, expressly established for researchers, academics, and students in technology disciplines, provides good opportunities to get to know the research and training systems of other universities. "The PANTHER initiative might launch a young reasearcher’s career as they get to collaborate with the best in their field”, added professor Rita Kiss.

The PANTHER programme originated from the cooperation of Polish, Irish, and Australian researchers, which was later joined by other universities, with BME among them. Today Polish, French, Irish, Spanish, and Hungarian universities are partnering with outstanding institutions from the southern hemisphere like Griffith University in Brisbane, the University of New South Wales in Sydney, and the University of Technology in Auckland. "We have established cooperations in several fields, for example in energetics, flight engineering, biotechnology, and electrical engineering/informatics”, said Rita Kiss, who has collaborated with researchers in Brisbane and Auckland on her biomechanics research project. "The exchange programme might well establish long-term partnerships since not only the European partners travel, our Australian and New Zealand colleagues and their students also come to Europe. The academics have 2 to 3-month research periods, while the PhD students and postdoctoral fellows may come for a term or the whole academic year to do their research in 2017/18. "

"After the successful completion of the three-year programme, we hope the initiative will go on, and new universities might join in. We are seeking to launch similar initiatives based on our memberships in international organizations", noted the vice-rector of BME for international affairs.

TJ-HA