ABOUT
INTERMATHS
ERASMUS MUNDUS JOINT MASTER DEGREE
“InterMaths – Interdisciplinary Mathematics” is a 2-Year full-time Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in Mathematical Modelling and Simulation with interdisciplinary applications, with a special focus on biomedical Sciences and industrial engineering. It is run by five European Universities:
- University of L’Aquila (UAQ) - Coordinating Institution
- Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH)
- Vienna University of Technology (TUW)
- Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB)
- University of Cote d’Azur in Nice (UCA)
“InterMaths” prepares for a career in research as well as in private enterprises, in particular in industrial engineering, manufacturing, pharmaceutics, biomedical industry. Our study plans develop mathematical skills that are relevant to a broad range of interdisciplinary fields:
- Mathematical modelling,
- Scientific computing,
- Control and optimization,
- Stochastic modelling,
- Image processing methods.
Our programme is designed to meet the demand of advanced research in European enterprises and provides - at the same time - a unique, integrated, European advanced joint programme in Applied Mathematics in line with innovative domains in science and technology.
The “InterMaths Consortium” made up of the above five Universities has been awarded the Erasmus Mundus label by the European Commission for the 2020-2024 period.
#The InterMaths profile
A professional scientist with interdisciplinary skills;
The “InterMaths” graduate is a professional scientist equipped with advanced and innovative skills in mathematical modelling and scientific computing, who’s able to translate challenging real-world problems into complex models, to solve them in a reasonable time and at reasonable cost, and to apply them in specific practical situations in a team with scientists coming from other disciplines.
"InterMaths" also prepares for the access to PhD programmes in Mathematics with applications to biology, medicine, engineering, industry, social science and finance.
Our programme is directed to students with a wide range of previous Bachelor studies such as Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science and the like.
InterMaths addresses innovation as a major task. We cover newly developed mathematical methodologies in Biomedical Sciences and Industrial Engineering, two seemingly unconnected disciplines which can however be approached by similar mathematical modelling techniques. We provide advanced training in deterministic and stochastic methods, advanced scientific computing, advanced optimization, stochastic methods. Our syllabi touch keywords at the edge of high level modern mathematics research such as optimal transport, multiscale modelling, control theory, parallel computing, and uncertainty quantification.
A group of private enterprises are associated to our Consortium as “industrial partners”. Our students have the opportunity to develop their Master thesis in collaboration with them, taking advantage of their strong links with our reference research groups. The application of mathematical modelling skills to real-world problems arising from our industrial partners during the thesis semester will also require the development of advanced skills in computer programming, statistics and data analysis, intelligent systems and logistic systems. Our interdisciplinary training covers topics from bio-medicine and industrial engineering. During the thesis semester our students will also develop transversal skills such as communication, team work, and leadership.
#Programme Structure
Our mobility scheme: 6 specializations on modern societal challenges
InterMaths students follow the mobility path sketched below:
Semester 1
Year 2
- Modelling and Simulation of Infectious Diseases (L’Aquila)
- Computational Methods in Biomedical Imaging (Hamburg)
- Stochastic Modelling in Neuroscience (Nice)
- Cancer Modelling and Simulation (L’Aquila)
- Computational Fluid Dynamics in Industry (Vienna)
- Decision Making and Applications to Logistics (Barcelona)
These specialization paths have been designed on grounds of the fields of expertise of the five reference groups, often with links with groups in the same institutions from other applied disciplines. Most importantly, they address innovative methodologies and deal with societal challenges in nowadays society, in particular in medicine and in industry.
The mobility paths are assigned to the new cohort students at the beginning of the 2-year period. We try as much as possible to satisfy the students’ preferences. The mobility scheme is sketched in the following section.
Programme Details
- What's Erasmus Mundus
- Objectives
- Employability
- Student Agreement
- Mobility
- Language Policy
- Examination methods
- Degree Awarded
- Student support
- Sponsors
WHAT IS AN ERASMUS MUNDUS JOINT MASTER DEGREE (EMJMD)
Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree is one the Erasmus+ programmes funded by the European Commission.
An Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree (EMJMD) is a prestigious, integrated, international study programme, jointly delivered by an international consortium of higher education institutions.
EMJMDs award EU-funded scholarships to the best student candidates applying under annual selection rounds.
Study take place in at least two of the universities involved.
OBJECTIVES
“InterMaths” aims at forming a professional scientist with interdisciplinary skills, equipped with expertise in advanced mathematical modelling and scientific computing, who’s able to translate challenging real-world problems into complex models, to solve them in a reasonable time and at reasonable cost, and to apply them in specific practical situations in a team with scientists coming from other disciplines.
InterMaths addresses innovation as a major task. We cover newly developed mathematical methodologies in Biomedical Sciences and Industrial Engineering, two seemingly unconnected disciplines which can however be approached by similar mathematical modelling techniques. We provide advanced training in deterministic and stochastic methods, advanced scientific computing, advanced optimization, stochastic methods. Our syllabi touch keywords at the edge of high level modern mathematics research such as optimal transport, multiscale modelling, control theory, parallel computing, and uncertainty quantification.
EMPLOYABILITY
A group of private enterprises are associated to our Consortium as “industrial partners”. Our students have the opportunity to develop their Master thesis in collaboration with them, taking advantage of their strong links with our reference research groups. The application of mathematical modelling skills to real-world problems arising from our industrial partners during the thesis semester will also require the development of advanced skills in computer programming, statistics and data analysis, intelligent systems and logistic systems. Our interdisciplinary training covers topics from bio-medicine and industrial engineering. During the thesis semester our students will also develop transversal skills such as communication, team work, and leadership.
Our graduates are typically addressed to R&D positions in private enterprises, in particular in industrial engineering, manufacturing, pharmaceutics, biomedical industry.
Moreover, our graduates are suited to access PhD programs in mathematics and applications everywhere in the world.
STUDENT AGREEMENT
For transparency's sake and with the aim to avoid misleading information among students about their rights and obligations while studying InterMaths, we invite our selected applicants to take a look at a template of our "Student Agreement" before the course enrolment. In September enrolled students will then be required to sign a final official version of such contract with the InterMaths coordinator.
Student Agreement Sample
MOBILITY
The EMJMD study period will take place in at least two of the Programme Countries represented in the InterMaths consortium (in a place different from their country of residence).
Our specialization tracks have been designed on grounds of the fields of expertise of the five reference groups, often with links with groups in the same institutions from other applied disciplines. Most importantly, they address innovative methodologies and deal with societal challenges in nowadays society, in particular in medicine and in industry.
All students will spend the first semester at UAQ. For the second semester, the cohort is split into two groups, one spending second semester in Hamburg (TUHH), the other one in Vienna (TUW). The two semesters share a core set of activities in numerical methods and parallel computing.
The destinations at TUW or TUHH in semester 2 are designed according to the assigned destination for the second year as follows:
- Students meant to spend Year 2 at UAQ #1, TUW, or UAB will spend semester 2 at TUW;
- students meant to spend Year 2 at UAQ #2, TUHH or UCA will spend semester 2 at TUHH (see the scheme here).
Organization of student mobility
Students are assigned one of the six Year-2 specialisation tracks. We shall try to distribute the students as uniformly as possible on the six specialization tracks, taking into account their preferences.
In their application form students may specify their favourite tracks in preferential order and even select their non-preferable tracks. What we can guarantee at this stage, before the official mobilty paths are established, is that no student will be assigned to a track they have flagged as "non-preferable" in their application. That being said, the committee will do its best to reach a compromise between the choices made by each student on their application and the need for allocating a balanced number of students to each partner university.
Each student is provided with all the essential information about their mobility after the beginning of the first semester, when all the students of that cohort have actually turned up and enrolled in the programme.
LANGUAGE POLICY
The InterMaths Consortium will offer our students fair opportunities to get the most out of their stay in a European country, as far as language and cultural exchange are concerned. Local language courses are organized and students are encouraged to be part of social and cultural events arranged by local students and the InterMaths staff. This is intended to help our students adjust to living in a new and different environment and becoming acquainted with the local community, while developing some basic language skills.
More specifically, during the first and second semester, the Consortium offers initial intensive courses on local languages and cultures (Italian at UAQ, and German at TU Vienna and TU Hamburg). These courses will allow students to understand and use basic local language in the most common situations of their university life. It will be compulsory for the student to pass at least a preliminary test of competence (A1, breakthrough/beginner level, according to C.E.F.R.) in Italian by the end of the first semester in L’Aquila and in German by the end of the second semester in Vienna/Hamburg. UAQ and TUHH (the latter in collaboration with UHH) have a long-standing expertise on this kind of courses in view of the decennial experience with the EMMD “MathMods”. The German course at TUW will be given by the language institute “Innes Institute Vienna” (a long-standing partner of TU Wien), which regularly organizes social activities for its language students (like guided walking tours through the city center, or waltz workshops).
Fast students who have easily reached the A1 level over the course of the semester, can opt for attending a more advanced course (A2, waystage/elementary level, according to C.E.F.R.) in the following semesters they might be spending in the same institution. In this case the language course is optional and the ECTS credits obtained will be recognised as extra credits in the student’s curriculum. Similarly, extra credits can be recognised for optional basic language courses of Spanish and Catalan at UAB and French at UCA.
EXAM METHODS AND MECHANISMS
The exams are evaluated by the teaching staff of the institution where the courses take place.
In good time at the beginning of each semester students are provided a study plan, with a calendar showing dates and deadlines for lectures, labs, examinations, official holidays and breaks.
The following table shows the equivalence between the grading system of each single partner of the Consortium, the ECTS grades and GPA grades, respecting local rules.
DEGREE AWARDED
Students who have satisfied all the requirements of the degree programme will be awarded a Joint Master Degree in Interdisciplinary Mathematics signed by:
- the University of L'Aquila and Autonomous University of Barcelona
as well as by
- the university(ies) where the student has spent at least one semester.
The joint degree awarded shall be testified by a joint Master diploma (parchment), a transcript of records and, upon request, by a joint diploma supplement, produced and issued by the Coordinating Institution on behalf of the student’s degree awarding universities.
The joint degree delivered by the InterMaths EMJMD will be officially recognised in the countries awarding the degree.
The official titles of the Master degree awarded shall be in accordance with the national accreditations of the degree programme of the universities involved:
- UAQ: Laurea Magistrale nella classe LM-44 “Mathematical Modelling”;
- UAB: Máster Universitario Erasmus Mundus en “Matemáticas Interdisciplinarias”;
- UCA: Master “Mathématiques”;
- TUHH: Master in "Interdisciplinary Mathematics"
- TUW: Master in “Interdisciplinary Mathematics”.
STUDENT SUPPORT
Support via email is available to our students and applicants throughout the year (responses are usually given in no more than 48 hours) in order to handle as many practical matters as possible, for example:
- applicants are assisted in pre-enrolement matters (how to apply, details on scholarships, documents required, queries about the study programme, etc.);
- selected students receive all the support they may need before actually joining our programme: invitation letters, visa, embassies, health insurance;
- enrolled students keep being assisted on many occasions, as when documents for various purposes need to be produced (registration certificates, transcripts of records...).
Direct support is offered by our teams, Alumni Association and international offices at each node to handle matters related to students' accommodation, arrival, health care and the like. Our dedicated InterMaths Team and Alumni Association are made up of experienced welfare advisers, who can give help and advice on a variety of subjects, including general and personal matters. We also organise a couple of social events for international students, which include trips to the surrounding areas and dinners. Some examples of the support services available to our students are given below:
- general welfare issues;
- advice on academic policies and procedures;
- issues relating to our program, academic progress, failure or exclusion;
- information about the university and local community;
- welcome and orientation meetings;
- enrolment at university and related support (e.g. exam registration).
SPONSORS
Such funding will cover the InterMaths EMJMD for four editions, from 2020 to 2024 (until its completion, due in 2026).
#Coordinators InterMaths EMJMD;
#Our Teaching Staff;
The “InterMaths” Consortium is the outcome of decades of networking in applied mathematics research, higher education joint programs, and interplay with industry. Our reference groups feature decades of collaborations in academic networking at EU-funded level, coordination of joint degrees, double degrees, Erasmus Mundus programs, as well as transfer of knowledge with non-educational stakeholders, both at local and international level. Our researchers are primary actors in research teams of outstanding level involving world leading figures and Fields medalists.
The coordinating group at L’Aquila features an outstanding research record in mathematical modelling with applications to biology and medicine. The group is in charge of the first-semester teaching focused on fundamentals of advanced applied mathematics (real analysis, ordinary and partial differential equations, continuum mechanics, and control systems). Prof. Corrado Lattanzio is a prominent figure in the mathematical theory of fluid-dynamical models in biomedical and social sciences. The group features among others Marco Di Francesco and Bruno Rubino (Programme Coordinator and Vice-Rector for international affairs at the University of L’Aquila), as well as collaborations with world-leading researchers in partial differential equations at CISCAMM – University of Maryland, KAUST (Saudi Arabia), University of Oxford.
Two groups are in charge of the second semester, focused on advanced scientific computing (in particular finite element methods and parallelization) and other modelling skills (stochastic analysis, numerical optimization, variational calculus). The group at Vienna - run by Prof. Anton Arnold, a widely acknowledged expert in kinetic and transport partial differential equations - features experts in finite elements methods such ad Dirk Praetorius, Jens Markus Melenk, and Joachim Schoeberl. The group at Hamburg, led by Prof. Anusch Taraz, features experts in scientific calculus such as Marko Lindner, Armin Iske, and Ingenuin Gasser. This group is in close interplay with the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE, Germany), more precisely the research group on mathematical modelling in medicine, image processing, and computer tomography led by Prof. Tobias Knopp. Our programme also benefits from the teaching offers at the two technical universities in Hamburg and Vienna, complementing the applied mathematics courses with applied modules from internationally acknowledged groups in computational fluid dynamics and biomedical imaging.
The group in Nice counts on Prof. Francois Delarue, an applied mathematician with outstanding research record on stochastic methods, as well as on the interplay with the NeuroMod Institute led by Prof. Patricia Reynaud-Bouret with expertise on mathematical modelling in neuroscience and neurocognition. The group at UAB Barcelona is led by Prof. Susana Serna, an applied mathematician who is also member of the education board of ECMI (European Consortium of Mathematics in Industry). The group features a longstanding tradition on mathematical methods in optimization and operations research with applications to industry.
