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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BioMEP (Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics)

Teaser

Summary

The global and EU healthcare sector is facing massive challenges due to the ageing population and growing burden of various diseases. To meet the economic and health challenges in the society, a move from treatment towards early diagnosis and prevention is a necessity. There is certainly a demand for innovative technological solutions for health and wellbeing. The health technology is an industrial sector with one of the highest percentages of R&D personnel with research education. Multi- and cross-disciplinary knowledge and internationalization are strongly emphasized in health technology industry. It comes as no surprise, then, that the demand for highly educated biomedical engineering (BME) experts has increased tremendously over the past few years.

The BioMEP mission is to improve the welfare of the society through improvements in healthcare and supporting the strong industry sector of medical technology. It is the objective of BioMEP to fulfil the demand for highly-qualified biomedical engineers and medical physicists addressing the needs of academic, healthcare and industry sector, and thus to meet the increasing demands of the European labour market.

To achieve its objective our research and training programme revolves around three core essential issues:
â€¢ Early intervention in preventing diseases with highest burden on our society;
â€¢ The need for multi-disciplinary collaboration to approach health issues concurrently from different perspectives (engineering, medicine, physics) in order to create medical technology developments;
â€¢ The need for highly qualified experts to translate their research findings into innovative products for the healthcare and medical technology sectors.

Work performed

1. Management

The Steering Committee (SC) is responsible for strategic decisions concerning the programme. SC is comprised of representatives from each partner institution, the coordinator, the director of the programme and one representative of the ESRs. The SC meetings were arranged to evaluate the status of the doctoral programme, to discuss about on-going research projects results and advice on the dissemination and exploitation potential and on ethical issues review and as well address matters raised by partners or by ESRs.

The quality of the career guidance has been ensured by applying the same standardized supervision and monitoring scheme for each student. For each ESR, at least one senior researcher performing successful research acts as the primary supervisor. To enable a balanced and broad, but at the same time in-depth training of the ESRs and to promote the knowledge transfer between the partners, one or more co-supervisors from the same or different partner institutions have been also nominated. The ESRs are part of one local research group, where monitoring tools for the individual research projects and training are in place, such as regular presentation in group seminars and written reports. The quality and efficacy of the supervision and progress of each ESRs is monitored and assessed annually by a follow-up group (2 senior scientists).

2. Selection and evaluation

The recruitment process targeted talented and highly motivated Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) from all over the world. The selection and evaluation process contained the following stages

1. Eligibility check
2. Peer-review evaluation
3. Interview
4. Final selection

The Steering Committee performed a final review of the 15 top-ranked successful applicants and assessed if all the research focus areas covered by the doctoral programme were represented in a balanced way.

3. Training and dissemination

At the programme level, BioMEP has provided training activities in the field of biomedical engineering and medical physics at the highest quality level comprising of a series of events. BioMEP students have attended courses provided by all the partner organizations. Thus, the ESRs have benefitted from the opportunities derived from the participation in the BioMEP beyond what each partner institution will provide individually.

Each ESR has made a personal career development plan together with their supervisors covering research project proposal, scientific objectives, and schedule of envisaged courses, secondments and as well long-term career planning. The ESRs have been encouraged to have at least one secondment/internship to another partner organization and/or private sector collaborator. The secondments have been strongly promoted by the doctoral programme.

All publications made in the BioMEP doctoral programme are open access. During the first two years of the programme (about one year for the students) one paper has been published. Seven papers are under review.

BioMEP PhD students have attended numerous conferences, seminars and workshops during the programme. BioMEP students have attended conferences 36 times, and held 16 poster presentations in addition to 23 oral presentations.

4. Ethics

The Advisory Board carried out the analysis of ethical aspects. The objective of this Board was to make sure that BioMEP does not support research which would be contrary to ethical principles, and also if the procedures to prevent ethical issues described in the project (including candidatesâ€™ research project) are in agreement with the hosting institution ethical Policies. During the programme, the ethics monitoring is continuously done by the follow-up groups of the fellows.

Final results

BioMEP will form young researchers in biomedical engineering (BME) and medical physics (MP) that will play a pivotal role in pushing forward this highly competitive field by offering excellent training, research opportunities and improved working conditions to the early-stage researchers (ESRs). This will reflect in the prospective technological applications arising from the ESRs research projects: designing and developing novel medical diagnostics systems and therapeutic methods, developing innovative and cost-effective instruments and materials for the needs of the healthcare system. The ESRs will thus allow Europe to reach and maintain a leading role in health technology industry sector, academia and hospitals with large economic implications. These health-related technologies developed by our ESRs will not only improve the health and quality of life of people, but also diversify Europeâ€™s knowledge-based economy through technology transfer and spin-off companies that support growth in the health technology area.

In addition to the complementary training on excellent theoretical and applied skills from the partnersâ€™ areas of expertise, the ESRs will gain an international perspective on their research topic. The international mobility of ESRs among the partners will train them in adapting to new learning and working environments and to new cultures. Through the inter-sectorial cooperation, the ESRs will develop their teamwork skills by working together with research groups and experts from partner institutions, hospitals and leading private companies. Besides the mutual benefit for the ESRs and the hosting institutions through knowledge exchange especially for ESRs the secondment/research visit to a different type of institution will enable them to get a broader view of different possibilities for their professional careers. BioMEP is expected to reinforce existing research collaborations between the different partner universities and to create new ones.