After receiving the COFUND grant from the Horizon 2020 programme for 14 PhD positions, NETWORKS has been granted a COFUND grant of €1.0 million to appoint 14 postdoctoral researchers for 2 years. NETWORKS is a partnership between mathematicians from the University of Amsterdam, Eindhoven University of Technology, Leiden University and Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica. The consortium’s grant application made an exceptional impression on the evaluation committee. They praised the quality of the research options within NETWORKS and the way NETWORKS is organized: "the proposal convincingly demonstrates that the fellows will be excellently prepared for high-level positions in academia and industry". CWI will host 2 Post Doc researchers.
About the programme
Networks for communication, transportation, finance and energy form the backbone of modern society. Reliable and efficient network infrastructures are of enormous economic and social value, and their importance will only increase in the coming years. Highly skilled researchers familiar with networks are therefore urgently needed. They should have a deep understanding of methods to optimize network performance, to control processes running on networks, and to predict how these processes will evolve over time. NETCO-PD will train 14 such researchers at the postdoctoral level, who will gain the necessary scientific knowledge and professional skills for a successful career inside and outside academia. The main objectives of NETCO-PD are:
- To provide Europe with 14 future research leaders in the important area of complex networks, where there is great demand for highly skilled researchers.
- To bring together expertise from two disciplines, stochastics (a subarea of mathematics) and algorithmics (a subarea of computer science), and to train ERs by performing world-class research in these disciplines and at their interface. This unique interdisciplinary approach is essential for dealing with complex network problems, since the performance of network algorithms is influenced by the highly volatile nature of network processes, and vice versa.
- To attract talented and creative junior researchers at the postdoctoral level, offer them attractive working conditions in 2-year contracts, as well as the best possible training and career perspective.
- To extend the NETWORKS training program with activities targeted to postdoctoral researchers. This extension fills a gap in the training of young researchers at a crucial stage in their career, and cannot be acquired anywhere else in The Netherlands.
About NETWORKS
NETWORKS was launched in 2014 by the University of Amsterdam, Eindhoven Technical University, Leiden University and Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica. Within NETWORKS, new stochastic models and algorithms are developed with a focus on large-scale networks. The ultimate goal is to better understand such complex, volatile networks, create more reliable models of them, and better optimise and manage network processes.
Photo: Ivar Pel
