The next Study Group in the Netherlands, SWI2007, the 58th
ESGI, will be held at Universiteit Utrecht
from January 29 to February 2, 2007.
Specific information about this Study Group can be found at the
SWI2007 site.
This page has (general) information on:
The Study Group is an industrial/academic week where mathematics is
used to tackle industrial problems. This concerns a national
(European) initiative that is supported by STW/EW in the
Netherlands. We would like to invite you to participate in
this event.
Background
At the University of Oxford a small group of mathematicians started in
the sixties to organize meetings where industrial scientists met
academics working in (applied) mathematics. These
"Oxford weeks" have grown to a large gathering on a yearly basis of
mathematicians and other academics working on problems brought to them
by people from the outside world. Mostly industrialists but sometimes
people from governmental institutions or other.
These European Study Groups with Industry are organized by different
universities in the UK and similar weeks have been organised in
Australia (MISG), the States (RPI Workshop) and other countries.
Success factors
The success of a study group can be attributed to a number of reasons,
for example:
* they help foster contacts between academia and industry, sometimes
leading to research contracts,
* they frequently lead to challenging new research areas, which have a
direct bearing on physical problems,
* they are an excellent source of research topics for graduate students
(as well as academics),
* they allow companies to become
acquainted with students and evaluate them for future employment,
* the obvious reasons of the company wanting a problem solved,
* pleasure of working with enthusiatic colleagues.
The participants are free to join any of the problem sessions or serve more projects with their expertise.
The Study Groups take one week with:
- Monday morning: presentation of problems by
representatives from industry,
- Monday afternoon till Thursday: intensive
workshop-sessions,
- Friday: presentation of the resultats by the academics,
- a report of the results will be published shortly after the week.
Alongside the problem-solving activities, expository lectures covering
some important areas of modern applicable mathematics will be given
during the afternoons.
Research workers from industrial and commercial concerns are invited
to present one of their current technical problems for study in
working sessions with leading specialists from the academic community.
Problems may come from a wide variety of subject areas, but should be
amenable to mathematical modelling and analysis.
In a week of brainstorming and mathematical modelling there
is usually enough time to generate and reject many ideas for solving the problem, and usually some of the idea's are checked in more detail. The real
research may only start afterwards, for which useful contacts are made
with the acedemics to work together if needed.
The meeting helps
to further establish links between industry and academia and in particular
to encourage the greater use of mathematical modelling in industry.
Sponsors
This programme is supported by ITW (Industrial and
Applied Mathematics) and ECMI (European Consortium for
Mathematics in Industry). The Technology
Foundation STW contributes as a part of the joint
STW/EW programme Wiskunde Toegepast.
