Training by research

The ESRs will receive day-to-day research training within their individual research projects, both at academic and non-academic partners. The aim of the research training is to develop skills with cutting-edge technologies and approaches and to provide deep insight into the topic. ApPEARS partners collectively cover a wide range of disciplines, relevant for the field of appearance printing, such as: appearance reproduction workflow, metrology, vision, material science, and computer graphics. The training through research will kick-off with training by the respective supervisors in small groups of local ESRs (one to three ESRs) to provide an overview of their field. Each node will subsequently introduce experimental techniques, computer models and theoretical approaches, backed up by early networking, scientific meetings and workshops, as well as a carefully planned program of secondments. The importance of actively engaging in the scientific process under the supervision of qualified colleagues in order to learn how to do research will be emphasized. The early focus will be on performing both independent and collaborative research in the frame of WPs 2-5, and linking fundamental questions to applied problems (bridging industry and academia).

Then the focus will gradually shift to obtaining publishable results, writing publications, patents, and a PhD thesis, and presenting the work in the academic and lay press. To overcome cross-sectoral barriers, each ESR trained in academic groups will have at least one secondment at one of the non-academic sites except ESR 8, and the ESRs in our partner companies will undertake secondments in the academic groups. Thus, all ESRs will have direct contact with the technologies and operations running in an industrial context and, through discussion with the industrial supervisors, learn about industrial approaches to implement a new technology.