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20. Apr. 2013
The Central European Institute of Technology at Brno University of Technology (CEITEC BUT) officially opened its first interdisciplinary PhD study programme in Advanced Materials and Nanosciences. This new PhD programme offers students the chance to draw on the expertise and experience of experts from three top scientific institutions concurrently. Students will also have an exceptional chance to utilise the often unique instrumentation and technology available in this scientific centre.
Already those that are interested in the new PhD study programme can submit applications to the preliminary acceptance process. The new PhD studies offer two areas, and these are Advanced Nanotechnologies and Microtechnologies, and Advanced Materials. The studies are planned to take four years and will be mainly in English. As against standard PhD programmes, students will have access to academic staff from Brno University of Technology and from Masaryk University, and scientists from the Institute of Physics of Materials of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. “Currently cooperation between a single university and a single scientific institution is the norm. This new PhD study programme is fully backed up by the scientific capacity of CEITEC as a centre of scientific excellence at all the three aforementioned institutions, which means that the students will have access to the cutting edge instruments that CEITEC laboratories are equipped with,” says Prof. Radimír Vrba, director of CEITEC BUT, explaining the advantages of the PhD study programme.
The discipline “Advanced Nanotechnologies and Microtechnologies” offers students knowledge and skills focussing in particular on the scientific fields of the nanotechnology of materials and structures, generally useful for nanoelectronics and nanophotonics. This discipline combines the preparation and characterisation of nanostructures. Biological and medicinal applications of these materials and products, utilising for example nanobiosensors and nanodots, will also be part of the studies. Against this, in the discipline of “Advanced Materials” students will concern themselves with advanced ceramic materials, polymers, metals and composites. Part of what this discipline offers is the application of advanced materials in medicine, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, power engineering and chemistry.
Results of a recent international evaluation of CEITEC scientific staff confirmed the quality of the scientific infrastructure that CEITEC can offer new students of the PhD study programme. These PhD students will have the chance to work with the best scientists in the fields of nanotechnology and material science. “Within this new PhD study programme our students will be involved in international projects. They will learn how to science is carried out at the top European and world institutions alongside world-renowned scientists, and at the same time have a chance to see various areas of the commercial utilisation of the results of scientific research,” adds Professor Vrba.
CEITEC plans to open a further two interdisciplinary PhD study programmes. The first of these will focus only on the life sciences and the second has been conceived uniquely as a multidisciplinary programme on the borders of the life and physical sciences. This makes use of the natural overlap of the seven CEITEC research programmes.