Double PhD / mobility of students: The BIT Joint School Certificate is in place to those students desiring to study at the three Universities. By aligning the curricula and encouraging students’ mobility already in an early stage of their careers we ensure competitiveness and education at a high level where we aim to mutually reconcile without making compromises but achieving a maximum of quality. The BIT school joint certificate as agreed in the memorandum of understanding and in the bilateral agreements is a first step towards further steps which could in the future mean the application for joint degrees of the three universities. In order to make the student exchange attractive and competitive, the exchange is on the one hand limited to a certain number of students on the other hand we will need to support such an exchange program not only by setting the legal grounds but also offering grants comparable with other programs at European level such as the Erasmus program.
The BIT School will also support students working towards a double PhD from two of the participating universities. The student will enroll in a BIT University that is the location of the student's supervisor. Additionally, the student will be co-advised by a Professor from another BIT University. It is expected that BIT Ph.D. students as well as their advisors will make heavy use of the research staff mobility funds of BIT, thereby fostering research collaboration among the partners, e.g. via joint publications. Each BIT University may issue a call for a BIT Ph.D. and the BIT committee will decide the research topics for the BIT Ph.D.
Student mobility is an essential part of BIT, from which we expect high payback. Contacts and experience exchange at student level will ensure future contacts and collaborations and bind the Universities closer together with the horizon of new generations of scientists and imply a feedback-loop for mutual alignment of educational efforts.
Mobility of teaching and research staff: The BIT School facilitates the exchange of lecturers and researchers among the three Institutions. Besides enabling students to join courses at the partner universities, this aspect of the BIT programme shall allow full courses to be offered by faculty members of one institute at the partner universities. This shall be combined with research visits of up to 3 months for up to 2 outgoing researchers per institution and year. As stated in the agreements these exchanges shall be explicitly dedicated to carrying out common research projects and interchanges of the teachers/researchers.
Common research: The BIT School encourages the possibility to carry out common research projects leading to added values by joining the capabilities of all three universities. In a rapidly moving and changing research environment achieving a critical mass and impact of research results depends more and more on strong long-term partnerships which shall guarantee competitiveness and high quality of joint research results and projects. First collaborative projects have successfully been started and we expect additional projects and joint publications supported by and being finally part of the BIT school.
Joint seminars and short visits: The three partners have already started a successful series of joint seminars and tutorials held by world class researchers and experts from industry under the BIT label. We shall continue and institutionalize these successful seminars as essential part of the BIT School.
BIT fellowship programme: In addition to the above measures we continue our joint BIT Fellowship programme which allows inviting world leading researchers and scientists for taking a guest professorship for up to 1 year. This BIT Fellowship is awarded to persons with high reputation; to the benefit of the whole BIT School, the guest professors will hold seminars at all visited partner sites during their fellowship.