PhD Programs - Welcome

Our research profiles

Hochschule Mittweida (HSMW)

• Laser Technologies
  • laser micro- and nanoprocessing, USP processes
  • laser high rate processing, surface processing
  • pulsed laser deposition, thin-film systems
  • additive manufacturing processes (3D printing)
  • laser macro technologies, laser process technologies
  • photonics, optical metrology
  • modelling and simulation
• Product and Process Development
  • power engineering and systems, resource management
  • information and system electronics, embedded systems
  • manufacturing technologies, work planning
  • materials & surface technologies,
  • drive systems, robotics, automation, industry 4.0
  • component development and -rating,
  • fibre composites
  • biological systems and technologies
• Digitalisation in Economy and Society
  • challenges of economic and social change
  • Open Government
  • working environments, life situations, mobility
  • regional development und entrepreneurship
  • digital education technologies
  • innovative media technologies, applied acoustics

• Applied Computer Science
  • ICT, networks and distributed systems
  • machine learning, applied mathematics
  • big data, blockchain / DLT, cryptography
  • software engineering, visualisation
  • web-, app-, cloud- & gaming technologies, IoT
  • virtual reality / augmented reality
  • computational life sciences, digital forensics, IT security

Montanuniversität Leoben (MUL)

• Mineral Resources Production and Processing
• Metallurgy
• High-Performance Materials
• Process and Product Engineering
• Environmental Technology and Recycling, which are complemented by the following fields of research
• Energy Technology and Resource Management
• Safety Engineering and Risk Management
• Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Engineering and Economics

Politechnika Śląska (SUT)

• Computational oncology and personalized medicine;
• Artificial intelligence and data processing
  • application of artificial intelligence methods in optimisation problems, construction of decision and quality systems, authentication of people, and natural language processing
• Materials of the future
• Smart cities and future mobility
  • identification of the needs connected with the existing infrastructure as well as those of the society
  • technological and spatial development making it possible to satisfy the needs previously identified, to overcome contemporary limitations, to improve the efficiency of solutions, and to reduce the negative impact of human activity on natural environment and quality of life.
• Sustainable consumption and production
  • environmental impact caused by transport and by waste generation because of design, production and use of vehicles, as well as of vehicle operation and decommissioning, and on the development of air pollution profiling systems and the application of Life Cycle Assessment as a tool for analysis of the environmental impact of smart urban solutions,  development of methods and technologies intended for acquisition and processing of transport infrastructure, qualitative and quantitative social surveys used to describe various phenomena related to the human factor in urban transport and logistics.

• Process automation and Industry 4.0
• Climate and environmental protection, modern energy
  • Climate and environmental changes and reduction of air pollution,
  • Water and wastewater management and environmental biotechnology,
  • Circular economy,
  • Renewable and alternative energy sources and prosumer energy,
  • Innovative technologies and sustainable development,
  • Education for sustainable development and shaping environmental awareness,
  • Problems of degradation and revitalisation of areas,
  • Energy efficiency and energy management,
  • Energy storage and hydrogen energy,
  • Shaping the internal environment
  • Intelligent buildings
  • Strategy for sustainable development of energy and gas energy.

Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg (TU BAF)

• Innovative technologies for mining operations
  • Energy efficiency through selective cutting and the reduction of waste generation,
  • Enhanced recovery of mineable resources,
  • Sensors, algorithms, automation and robotics in mining,
  • Improvement of equipment availability,
  • Health and safety and rescue
• Reclamation of mine lands and their rehabilitation for re-use
  • Environmental technologies for the recovery of raw materials from environmental compartments
• Climate mitigation and adaptation strategies
  • Climate modelling and hydrogeological modelling for forecasting groundwater replenishment and the availability of water resources
• New materials and technologies for the energy transformation in Europe
  • Solar energy, solar thermal energy, geothermal energy, biogas and gasification technologies
• Climate change economics and management
• Study of consumer patterns and behaviour with respect to natural resources, energy and water, recycling and re-use.

Polytechneio Kritis (TUC)

• Waste valorisation

Solid and liquid municipal, agricultural and industrial wastes are considered in most cases as secondary raw materials. Thus, efforts need to be taken for their valorisation, including the extraction of heavy metals (also rare earth and critical elements), the recovery of energy and nutrients, the production of secondary construction materials, biochar, compost and others. Their valorisation requires the development of novel technologies or the modification of existing ones as well as the implementation of LCA/LCC studies to assess benefits and environmental impacts.

• Advanced mining technologies enhancing the sustainability of raw material extraction

Recent advances in artificial intelligence technologies have provided a new approach in solving many problems related to the mineral industry, a traditional economic activity which was heavily based on the experiential knowledge. The implementation of machine learning, expert and autonomous systems, intelligence process automation, advanced analytics modelling and simulation provide many economic benefits for the mineral industry through cost reduction, energy efficiency, improved productivity and safety and reduced environmental footprint. Particularly the success of these technologies is mainly due to their similarity to human perception and reasoning. The mineral industry has been particularly receptive to these methods, since many of the mining operations and processes are understood and controlled in empirical ways.

• Sustainable Materials and Products

Materials production requires a large amount of energy use and is a significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, producing approximately 25% of all anthropogenic CO2 emissions. It produces large volumes of waste both in production and at end-of-life disposal. More efficient use of materials could play a key role in achieving multiple environmental and economic benefits. Sustainable materials are materials used throughout our consumer and industrial economy that can be produced in required volumes without depleting non-renewable resources and without disrupting the established steady-state equilibrium of the environment and key natural resource systems. Particular emphasis and concern is given worldwide with the sustainability of cement-based materials in construction. Therefore, the cement replacement using binders of waste or recycled materials, such as coal fly ash, blast-furnace slag, natural or artificial pozzolans, as well as aggregates of recycled glass, brick and concrete can efficiently reduce the embodied energy, improve the durability of construction materials and reduce the burden on the environment.

• Air pollution
  • Basic research on suspended particles dynamics. Applications to the atmosphere. Heterogeneous reactions on the surface of particles.
  • Development and application of three-dimensional models of air pollution.
  • Application of air quality models to study the dispersion and physico-chemical processes of atmospheric pollutants in the troposphere.
  • Measurements of air pollutants and meteorological data in the atmosphere.
  • Modelling processes and measurements of air pollutants indoors. Modelling the transport of air pollutants in the human body.
  • Technology development for the biological treatment of gaseous waste.
  • Mobile (automotive) and Stationary (industry) gas emissions control.
  • Environmental catalysis; Development of (nano-) composite catalytic materials for the abatement of gas pollutants.
• Liquid and solid waste management
  • Water quality.
  • Emphasis on the identification of organic micro-pollutants and by-products of disinfection.
  • Water and wastewater treatment.
  • Membrane bioreactors.
  • Natural and decentralised waste management systems.
  • Agro-industrial solid waste and sludge valorisation.
  • Solid waste characterisation, management and treatment.
• Water resources and coastal engineering
  • Technology development for soil and solid waste (toxic and dangerous) bioremediation.
  • Development of oil spill response.
  • Development, analysis, design, process control and optimization of biochemical processes.
  • Design and application of contaminated soils and groundwater remediation technologies.
• Remediation engineering
  • Hydrology
  • Geology and Hydrogeology.
  • Coastal Engineering.
  • Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
  • Environmental Models.
  • Optimal water resources management.
  • Environmental applications of the above.
• Environmental structures – natural disasters
  • Natural disasters -Floods – Earthquakes.
  • Soil mechanics.
  • Foundations design and construction.
  • Geodesy
• Sustainable energy and climatic change
  • Renewable Energy Systems Management.
  • Life Cycle Analysis.
  • Biofuels
  • Energy efficiency in the built environment.
  • Green buildings. Zero carbon emission buildings.
  • Urban environment and climate change. Urban heat island and sustainable cities.
  • Energy management systems. Buildings modelling control and optimisation systems.
  • Fuel Cells; Cogeneration of useful chemicals and electricity.
  • Hydrogen Energy; Hydrogen Production.
  • Natural gas and Biogas Valorisation and Utilisation.
  • Design and development of novel electrochemical; reactors and processes.
• Environmental sciences
  • Micro-extraction innovative techniques for quantification of organic micro-pollutants in environmental samples.
  • Environmental monitoring and fate of organic micro-pollutants in the environment.
  • Detection, isolation and study of microorganisms.
  • Microbial resistance against variable antibiotic agents, gene expression, resistance transport and evaluation of disinfection methods.
  • Degradation of organic pollutants in aqueous phase (water and wastewater) using oxidising chemical degradation methods such as UV radiation in the presence of H2O2 (UV/H2O2), Ozone (O3), homogeneous and heterogeneous photocatalysis and electrochemical oxidation.
  • Green Chemistry and Technology with emphasis on the development and implementation of environmentally friendly processes.
  • Contaminated sites characterisation – exploration and evaluation of contamination.
  • Remediation systems efficiency monitoring.
  • Environmental Law and Environmental Governance.
  • Banach Space Theory.
  • Stochastic Models of tumor growth.
  • Heterogeneous Catalysis and Catalyst Promotion.
  • Surface, interface, structural and electronic properties of (nano-)composite materials.
• Decay and conservation of monuments
• Architectural design, Site, Landscape and Environment, Urban planning

Universidad de León (ULE)

• Business Economics
• Biosystems Engineering
  • Plant protection and production.
  • Plant physiology.
  • Geomatics: drones applied to Biosystems Engineering.
  • Bioremediation
  • Waste recycling.
  • Sustainable infrastructures and constructions.

• Environmental Science and Technology
  • Research in environmental areas and environmental pollution.
  • Solving problems generated in the environment.
  • Application of environmental technologies.
  • Application of environmental remediation techniques.
  • Intervention in social welfare.

• Production and computer Engineering
  • Intelligent systems.
  • Advanced production technologies.
  • Mechanics and Materials Engineering.
  • Energy and Circular Economy.
  • Mining Engineering.
  • Cybernetics

Universitatea din Petroșani (UP)

• Mines, oil and gas domain
  • improving the methods, technologies, machines and equipment for quarries and underground mining;
  • investigating rocks and analysing land stability;
  • excavations and mining construction in quarries and subsurface;
  • monitoring the impact of mining activities upon the environment and techniques for environment rehabilitation;
  • studying the networks of mining ventilation, of microclimate and of gas dynamic and thermodynamic phenomena;
  • modernising the acquiring and processing of topographic and geodesic data;
  • analysing health, safety and risks in mining activities;
  • studying electrical and mechanic systems in mining industry.

• Industrial engineering domain
  • increase of energy efficiency through elaborating, analysing and improving heating and fluid assessment of energy equipment;
  • settling the measures for saving energy resources, for modernising equipment and increasing energy efficiency;
  • energy expression of the performance of various industrial systems, estimating the technical and energy levels of the process under analysis; theoretical foundation and simulation of thermo-fluid-dynamic processes;
  • decreasing energy intensity of industrial thermic equipment;
  • numeric simulation and modelling of the process of heat exchange in industrial equipment.

• Systems Engineering domain
  • electrical actuator control systems, robot control systems, renewable energy systems, biomedical systems, prediction systems based on big data processing, data communication systems.
  • Control of electrical drives.
  • Robots in the medical field.
  • Autonomous vehicles / systems.
  • Communication systems.
• Engineering and Management domain