Highly qualified building acoustics experts are few and far between; only a handful of people have PhD’s in building acoustics in the Netherlands. This project will add three more, and fifteen throughout Europe.

The training is aimed at recent graduate talents, who will undertake three to four years of research, receive training and be part of a European knowledge network on acoustics. Apart from TU/e, the universities of Aalto, Chalmers, Leuven and Liverpool are participating in the project, along with seven other organizations including the TU/e spin-off Level Acoustics.

“This will substantially strengthen the position of building acoustics at TU/e,” says Hornikx. “The chair currently has ten PhD’s and this will add another three, and we can appoint a postdoc. In the Netherlands this is already the largest group in this field and will now also become one of the larger ones in Europe.”

Good building acoustics is becoming increasingly important. Buildings are changing since they have to be sustainable and made of lighter material. Buildings are also increasingly in noisier environments (larger cities) and we work more and more in open-plan offices. That requires new insights and developments in building acoustics.

Source: TU/e press team