The Graduate College "Complex processes: Modelling, Simulation and Optimization"
ICM IWR
IGK-Heidelberg
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Graduate College
ICM
Pawinskiego 5a
02-106 Warsaw

e-mail: gradkol@icm.edu.pl
fax: +48 22 8749115
 


Graduate College
Polish-German PhD studies (Graduate College) Complex Processes: Modelling, Simulation and Optimization.
Managing board: prof. Marek Niezgódka (ICM) prof. Hans Georg Bock (IWR)
The Polish-German Graduate College is run in ICM in cooperation with the Graduate College at the IWR, University of Heidelberg.
See also http://www.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de/organization/gk/.
The idea of organizing PhD studies in form of Graduate Colleges was developped in Germany in 1990. The main goal was to create an environment especially suited to foster interdisciplinary PhD projects. Interdisciplinarity appeared in the PhD subject, reaching over at least two different fields, and by the participation of two PhD supervisors, representing their research areas. Present-dayabout 300 such Colleges exist, out of which about 20 alone in Heidelberg. Since 1997 the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft - the biggest German organization promoting scientific progress - also supports international Graduate Colleges. In its frame and thanks to the cooperation of German institutions with other european universities and institutes originated about 30 international Graduate Colleges.
History
The beginnings of the joint program of IWR and ICM reach back to the year 1995. The founder and former head of IWR, Prof. Willi Jäger, and the head of ICM, Prof. Marek Niezgódka determined a perspective outline for the cooperation of both institutes. The program included common teaching activities, from Master to PhD level, and sketched the cooperation in decision making and realization of scientific research projects with a strong interdisciplinary character in the fields of mathematical modelling and analysis of complex nonlinear processes.

Joint initiative
The will of further collaboration of the two institutions has been pronounced in the Memorandum of Understanding that was signed by prof. Marek Niezgódka (a director of ICM) and prof. Hans Georg Bock (a member of the managing board of IWR and a head of the Graduiertenkolleg) in Warsaw in February, 2001.
From October 12-13, 2001, the German-Polish seminar on Complex Processes: modelling, analysis and optimization took place in Warsaw. So began the German-Polish PhD program coordinated by IWR and ICM. The seminar gathered representatives from Germany and Poland, professors with significant archievements as well as their PhD students. The area described by the title of the seminar, which also defines the frame for future PhD projects, is large and includes many different fields and disciplines. Therefore representatives of various departments of the Warsaw University, the Warsaw Technical University, and the Academy of Science were invited to participate in the newly created Graduate College. The gathering enabled the initiation of contacts between German and Polish participants, as well as a preliminary formulation of the interdisciplinary research topics.

Today
The work of the Graduate College includes the following elements:

  • To provide a stimulating and creative atmosphere allowing the realization of interdisciplinary PhD projects, that are carried out in ICM as well as in IWR. For every project two supervisors are assigned and every PhD student spends about 6 month in the partner institute. During the research stay at IWR the PhD students are supervised by the German advisor, and vice versa for members of the international part of the Graduate College at IWR.

  • Scientific workshops that are organized by PhD students for PhD students. In the workshops participate highly qualified and internationally renowned scientific experts in the given field. The workshops are organized in IWR as well as in ICM, and members of both institutions participate in them.

  • Active participation in the yearly Polish-German meetings, in which the professors and the PhD students take part. The main goal of these meetings, already traditionally called 'fall workshops', is the presentation of results obtained within the PhD projects and the direct discussion among PhD students and the professors.


    This proposed form of the PhD studies is an essential novelty and and extension to traditional PhD studies of faculties and autonomic scientific institutes.

    An expression of appreciation of the cooperation of both institutions is the Memorandum of Understanding that was signed in Heidelberg on June 4th 2004 by the rector of the Warsaw University, Prof. Piotr Węgleński, and the rector of the University of Heidelberg, Prof. Peter Hommelhoff.



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