Unite! launches its Doctoral School

Group photo for PoliTO delegation at Unite! Research School

The Unite! Doctoral School (UDS) is the result of the valuable and rich collaboration of Unite! Universities, coordinated by Politecnico during these years of work. The UDS started its activities a few days ago. The main goal, outlined during the initial project stages, is to build a collaborative format for doctoral education, actively contributing to the redefinition of the European research and education system.

The first cohort of PhD students has therefore officially started. Unite! PhD students are now benefiting from a shared educational offering by the nine Alliance partner universities, as well as from cutting-edge teaching programmes, which have been co-created under the guidance of three PhD Academic Boards: Sustainable Energy, Industry 4.0 and Artificial Intelligence. These Academic Boards were set up to define the strategic direction of the whole Unite! doctoral programmes, ensuring that the educational offering keeps pace with the latest innovations in research.

The UDS programme includes a rich catalogue of optional doctoral courses, selected from those offered locally by Unite! partners. Each Unite! university curates its study offerings, which are specifically designed for the Unite! Doctoral School: the aim is to develop joint programmes and a doctoral training process that is concretely shared by the entire Alliance.

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Plenary moment of the school

The Unite! Doctoral School offers more than a joint doctoral programme; UDS doctoral students benefit from extensive interconnectivity and shared resources across partner universities, receiving tailored and comprehensive training.

Professor Eugenio Brusa, Unite! Doctoral activities coordinator, stated: “It is thanks to an active collaboration of all Unite! universities, aimed at overcoming regulatory and legislative barriers between countries, that the Unite! Doctoral School, a federation of national doctoral schools designed as a facilitating tool for the mobility of doctoral and post-doctoral students, fosters collaboration between research infrastructures and integrates territorial innovation ecosystems. The Online Learning Catalogue thus realises for the first time the virtual mobility of the Alliance at doctoral level”.

Alongside the inauguration of the Doctoral School, Politecnico also took part in the realisation of the Unite! Research School, a week in the French Alps dedicated to more than 180 participants from all the partner universities: 50 master's students, 80 doctoral students and 50 researchers gathered in Grenoble to explore the Unite! research ecosystem.

Over five days, the Blended Intensive Programme offered the opportunity to immerse oneself in the topics of AI, Industry 4.0, Sustainable Electronics, Nuclear Energy and Electrochemical Energy. Meetings with industry players, brainstorming sessions, workshops and shared discussions were also organised, as well as courses on transversal research skills and working groups on specific case studies, including the aUPaEU project workshop on the digital services offered by the Agora platform.

Unite! website will host the upcoming UDS public calls, so to join initiatives such as the future editions of the Research School.