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Description
This mobility project between the University Politehnica of Bucharest (UPB) and the University of Agder (UiA) is proposed as a complimentary project associated with an ongoing EEA Grants Collaborative Research Project "A Massive MIMO Enabled IoT Platform with Networking Slicing for Beyond 5G IoV/V2X and Maritime Services (SOLID-B5G)" which started from January 2021 and will last for three years. The SOLID-B5G project is one of the 26 projects which are granted from the Norway Grants Call 2019, selected among the 285 proposals submitted in December 2019. In addition to UPB and UiA, the other project partners are BEIA Consult International/RO, BEAM Innovation/RO, Telenor Maritime/NO, and two third-country partners in Spain and Canada, respectively.
Currently, the SOLID-B5G project is intensively undergoing with active participation of both faculty members and students from both sides. In addition to more than 10 faculty members who are involved in this project, there are about 5~10 Ph.D. and Master students who participate in this project through their semester project or thesis work in 2021. These ongoing activities are carried out on the premises of both universities. More students are expected to participate in the project in 2022 and 2023.
Summary of project results
During the implementation of the project, there were encountered problems related to the budget which was very limited and could not support all the expenses during the mobility.
The budget initially allocated did not took into account the current travelling and living conditions which changed very much since the initial planning and, therefore it is very hard to identify new participants for the mobility since they have to cover some of the costs from external sources.
Information about the mobility project and the selection process was disseminated in the courses and laboratories of the faculty, through the UPB website, the Moodle platform and the faculty notice board.
Following the competition, the selected students/staff were contacted in order to complete the mobility documents.
Each student has been monitored both by the professors from Norway (through face-to-face meetings) and by the professors from Romania (through skype meetings).
There were no issues that could not be solved through these meetings. The importance of the project consists in the expertise exchange and the strengthening of the relations which could lead to future research projects proposed by the two universities.
Mobilities have been linked to modern areas of research, allowing universities to take steps towards improving these areas and gaining national and international visibility. They will continue to have high impact joint research (2 conference papers submitted and 2 Q2 journal articles in preparation), and have a proposal for a special session at the prestigious IEEE 9th World Forum on Internet of Things Things and have another joint proposal for PhD networks - Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions.
UPB also benefited from the exchange of experience, sharing of ideas and practices in management and education.
outcomes:
Number of students from beneficiary states in exchanges (disaggregated by gender and Donor State) - 1
Number of staff from beneficiary states in exchanges (disaggregated by gender and Donor State) - 6
Number of staff from donor states in exchanges (disaggregated by gender and Donor State) - 3
The results we want to share are a successfully defended PhD thesis and several high-quality conference and journal papers.
Summary of bilateral results
The project was in line with the NUST POLITEHNICA Bucharest strategy that encourages the exchange of experience for students and staff in partnership agreements with entities from other countries.NUST POLITEHNICA Bucharest shares with the UiA same principles and approaches towards the areas of study, continuous research development, support for international cooperation, enhanced quality and technical transfer of research. The aim of the mobility project was to bring together a diverse group of staff and students in order to create and communicate new ideas and solutions. NUST POLITEHNICA Bucharest and UiA are interested in modernizing the curricula and its teaching methods, also this mobility project project between the two universities was proposed as a complimentary project associated with an ongoing EEA Grants Collaborative Research Project "A Massive MIMO Enabled IoT Platform with Networking Slicing for Beyond 5G IoV/V2X and Maritime Services (SOLID-B5G)"During the project we had 10 mobilities (students and staff).In addition to the technical benefits, it can also mention the new cultural experience and the fact that participants improved their technical skills and English language knowledge.The project results are shared knowledge regarding best practices in education and research and an increased collaboration between the two universities.Having a donor partner was very important because we were able to increase cooperation between the entities. During the mobilities, they shared their experience and knowledge with the participating researchers. One of the important outcomes of these mobilities was high quality research publications. In the future, we intend to continue collaboration on joint grant applications, PhD coordination and joint research topics.