- People , Research
- 30/03/2023
Supporting each other on a European level
The Innovative Training Network brings PhD candidates from different countries together
Fifteen PhD candidates from the MagnEFi network, a PhD fellowship financed by the EU, gathered in Eindhoven from March 13 to 16 for their final meeting. For the past three years, the researchers have worked closely together in the field of spintronics and they are now about to complete their PhD projects. Together with three PhD candidates from the group and associate professor Reinoud Lavrijsen, one of the academic supervisors, Cursor looks back on this special form of European cooperation.
It is pleasantly crowded in the canteen of FNA (Physics of Nanostructures), a research group within the Department of Applied Physics that focuses on spintronics, or - as they put it on their website - ‘taming the electron spin in nanodevices’. The fifteen PhD candidates, who are working on their PhD projects at various European institutions within the MagnEFi network, are meeting up one last time from March 13 to 16 to share their research results, attend training sessions, but also to catch up with each other face to face and do a lot of fun activities together. TU/e is hosting this last meeting.
Job interviews
This morning, the participants will conduct staged job interviews and receive feedback on their resumes and cover letters that they have prepared. It is one of the many training sessions the PhD candidates are given during the track and one that will prove very useful, seeing as the PhD candidates are currently in the final stage of their PhD track.
MagnEFi was created almost four years ago as a so-called Innovative Training Network (ITN). This fellowship is part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) of Horizon 2020, the European Commission’s grant program for doctoral and postdoctoral training. ITNs involve young researchers from all over the world working within a network of European institutions on PhD projects surrounding the same topic. MagnEFi was allocated more than four million euros from the EU for the project. As part of the three-year PhD track, PhD candidates receive grants, education and training.
Energy-efficient data storage
This particular group conducts research in the field of spintronics within a European network consisting of six universities, including TU/e, two research institutes and three industrial companies. The PhD candidates focus on the effect of the electric field on magnetism in data storage devices and sensors.
We live in a society that hinges on the use of digital data, but storing all that data is very energy consuming nowadays. Because of this, data storage substantially contributes to global CO2 emissions. The demand for data storage is ever increasing, giving rise to a great need for technological innovations that would enable more energy-efficient data storage.
In their research, the 15 PhD candidates explore how to store data faster and more energy efficiently by influencing the magnets in memory devices with an electric field. In the future, this technique could lead to a decrease in CO2 emissions produced by the many huge data centers and result in greener IT. Although everyone is working on the same research question, they do so from different perspectives by using different materials and methods.
Unique and challenging
Setting up such a large project on a European level is not a small feat. “MagnEFi was created almost four years ago, but we spent almost the entire first year recruiting candidates”, says project manager Clare Desplats. Desplats works at the Université Paris-Saclay, the program’s coordinating university. This institution was tasked with finding suitable partners and PhD candidates in accordance with all EU requirements for the program. “Stimulating migration is an important aspect of an ITN”, Desplats explains.
One of the conditions is that during the three years prior to the recruitment, candidates must not have resided in the country where they are to be appointed as PhD candidates for more than 12 months. This means that in an ITN, you cannot pursue the PhD program in the same country where you obtained your master’s degree. “You have to find people who are willing to go abroad for three years for their PhD project, and not everyone is open to that”, says Desplats. As part of the track, the PhD candidates also have to travel a lot for meetings, conferences and the mandatory secondments: short internships at other institutions within the consortium. This makes it a unique but also challenging program.
In the end, fifteen candidates were selected and appointed as PhD candidates at various European universities. In addition to TU/e and Université Paris-Saclay, four other universities participate in the program: University of Leeds, Universidad de Salamanca, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz and Aalto University.
“To me, they’re not colleagues, but friends”
Three PhD candidates who conduct their research within the MagnEFi network look back on the past three years and talk about what the program has done for them.
In the right place at the right time
Beatrice Bednarz is from Germany, and yet she started her PhD project three years ago at the University of Mainz, not far from home. Unlike most other PhD candidates, who travel abroad for the ITN program, she was able to complete most of the track on home territory. “I was in the process of completing my master’s degree in Applied Physics at TU Delft when I heard about the PhD position within this program”, she says. She was accepted and this allowed her to return to her home country. “It was a coincidence, I was in the right place at the right time”, says the PhD candidate with a smile.
What Bednarz appreciates most about this program is the fact that you get so much help and feedback from the group. The exchange of knowledge between them allowed her to conduct her own research in a much more targeted and efficient way. “For example, I wasn’t even aware that I could use a certain method; that was something I discovered thanks to the MagnEFi group. We work together closely and if someone gets stuck on something, we help each other out. If it wasn’t for this group, I would probably never have gotten this far in this particular area of research.” During this long track, the PhD candidates are all in the same boat; this really creates a strong bond, the PhD candidate thinks. “I feel more connected to the other MagnEFi researchers than to the research group at my university.”
Startup experience
After completing his bachelor's and master's degrees in Applied Physics at TU/e, Gyan van der Jagt decided to join the MagnEFi network. In March 2020, he moved to Paris where he was appointed as a PhD candidate at the Université Paris-Saclay. Van der Jagt admits that he had somewhat underestimated this move on a personal level. “It’s not easy to move abroad on your own; you sometimes feel lonely at first.”
Nevertheless, he thinks an ITN has many advantages over a regular PhD program. He spent most of his PhD track at Spin-Ion Technologies, a startup focused on developing magnetic materials through light ion irradiation to improve the efficiency of devices such as sensors. In addition to conducting his own research, he learned a lot about the inner workings of a company there.
“I saw firsthand all the work that goes into starting a startup”, says Van der Jagt. He worked in a small team of ten people and was involved in all sorts of practical business matters, from determining the business strategy to patent applications. He also collaborated on several projects, maintaining regular contact with customers. Through this practical experience, he developed important professional skills and it helped him in his own career choice.
Van der Jagt is one of the first PhD candidates in the group completing his PhD program; he successfully defended his dissertation in Paris at the end of March. Soon, he will start working at ASML. “Quite the stereotype”, in his words. He plans to attend the dissertation defenses of all his fellow ITN researchers. “I don’t call them colleagues. To me, they’re all friends now.”
Complete freedom
Pingzhi Li is one of the two PhD candidates conducting their research at TU/e. Hailing from China, his academic journey led him to Russia and Belgium, where he obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, before arriving at TU/e, where he is now pursuing his doctoral research.
Upon completion, he hopes to find a job in the United States or China, where he believes there are plenty of opportunities to apply his expertise in the industry. Li highly values the societal impact of his research and prefers to work for a company with a direct and positive impact on society through its technological innovations.
Looking back, he speaks fondly of the full academic freedom he was given during the ITN track. “I have the privilege of being able to define my own research topics based on my interests and to conduct my research independently.” Li also praises his academic supervisors, whom he describes as “incredibly helpful and engaged in the projects”. He also says the fact that you build many connections during the track is another added value of an ITN. “It has allowed me to work within a versatile network of various partners across the whole of Europe, both in the world of academia and industry.”
Li is also grateful for the friendships he has built. "Individuals with East Asian backgrounds, like myself, can face challenges in making friends while in Europe due to significant cultural differences. Thanks to the intensive cooperation in the field of spintronics, building friendships within this group was a natural and effortless process.”
“Don’t be afraid of diversity in the group, it’s enriching”
Reinoud Lavrijsen, associate professor at TU/e’s Department of Applied Physics and Science Education and one of the academic supervisors, thinks it is very important that cooperation takes place at the European level in this way. “This way, the PhD candidates also get to see how things work in other places.”
“An interesting mix of people with different backgrounds and a group that really supports each other”, is how Lavrijsen describes the PhD network. During the track, they had to overcome many obstacles, but the close-knit ITN group provided a solid foundation they could fall back on time and time again. As an academic supervisor, Lavrijsen was able to see up close how the participants developed during the track, not only on an academic but also on a personal level.
Homeless
As part of the ITN, researchers are required to complete a few secondments. That means they have to spend periods of several weeks or months at other participating institutions. They get to take a look at other labs, watch over the shoulder of their fellow researchers, and continue their own research in a different environment and under the guidance of other supervisors.
It involves a lot of travel, which has been quite a challenge for many of them. The COVID-19 pandemic complicated things further. Because of the strict measures, the PhD candidates were not allowed to travel for quite a long time and then had to catch up on all of their secondments in a relatively short period of time. Lavrijsen: “They would sometimes say to me: ‘I’ve been traveling so much lately, it feels like I’m homeless’.”
Still, this program has also done a lot for the young researchers, according to Lavrijsen. Because of the involvement of multiple universities, institutes and companies from different European countries, the PhD candidates get to explore different environments, build international connections and view their research area from different perspectives. “This way, they also get to see how things work in other places”, says Lavrijsen.
Imbalances
At TU/e, PhD candidates are given a great deal of freedom to think about what they want and how they are going to achieve it within a framework. But that is not always the case in other countries. “In some countries, PhD candidates are literally ‘students’ and that’s how they’re perceived. They often still take courses and they’re also given much more guidance in their research”, Lavrijsen explains. “Here, you have to do it yourself. You get a lot of freedom so it’s your chance to prove yourself.” That took some getting used to for some; after all, freedom brings with it a certain responsibility. “Some can handle that well, but some get insecure because of it. How you handle that depends on your personality”, says Lavrijsen
Since all participants receive the same grant, there are some countries where the PhD candidates are paid more than their immediate supervisor and the other PhD candidates in their group. “Because of that, they’re sometimes given disapproving looks, and people think of them as the ‘special PhD candidates’. That places them in an awkward position sometimes, and as a result, they experience extra pressure”, says Lavrijsen. Fortunately, such imbalances are much less common in the Netherlands”, he observes.
The ITN researchers receive three-year grants from the MSCA program, which corresponds to the duration of a PhD project in most countries in Europe. The Netherlands is an exception; here, PhD candidates are given four years to conduct their research. At TU/e, the ITN PhD candidates receive funding from the university for their fourth year. “I think it’s really very important that the Executive Board continues to support PhD candidates in this way. If they have to find their own funding for the fourth year, something is not right”, Lavrijsen said.
Collaboration
He thinks it is very important that thanks to the ITN, there is now cooperation at the European level. “If you’re based in Eindhoven and have few international contacts, you can still produce a perfectly fine dissertation, but you’re not competing with the rest of the world.” In order to achieve more, he says it is essential to look beyond borders and collaborate with colleagues abroad as well.
But it is not just the ITN researchers who are reaping the benefits of this collaboration. According to Lavrijsen, the ITN is an enrichment for the entire research group at TU/e. The other PhD candidates are also regularly involved in the lectures and meetings and thus gain insight into what their colleagues in other countries are working on. Moreover, it allows them to see what such international collaboration can offer you as a researcher. This motivates them to actively engage in international collaborations themselves, Lavrijsen believes.
Diversity
“We managed to create a very diverse group”, Lavrijsen says. “MagnEFi has people from all over the world, from India and China to Italy and Romania.” In addition to the cultural differences, there are major differences between the participants on a personal level. “We have a wide range of different personalities here, from very introverted to very extroverted. The challenge of an ITN is to learn to interact and cooperate with different types of people.” Lavrijsen’s advice to future PhD candidates who are considering joining an ITN is to embrace diversity. “Don’t be afraid of it, but instead, reap its benefits. It’s enriching.”
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