Creative Alliance in Robotics Research and Education Focused on Medical and Service Robotics (CARE Robotics)
WORK PLAN
Proposed CARE-Robotics project has significantly contribute to according to SCOPES program:
C.1 Improvement of teaching and training, development of curricula
C.2 Modernisation of methodology and approaches
C.3 Improvement of networking
C.4 Research infrastructure
More detailed action plan that ensure fulfilment of C.1 to C.4 is comprised of work-packages:
WP1. Project management
This WP deals with the overall management of the project and communication with the Steering Committee. Great emphasis has been placed on ensuring optimal organization, management and decision making structure of the project.
The major objectives are:
To lead the project to successful completion;
Good co-ordination of the work packages leader activities;
Good communication and collaboration within East European and Swiss strategic partners;
Efficient legal, contractual, financial and administrative management of the project;
Assuring high quality of the project work and project’s results;
To provide effective project management at all stages throughout the duration of the project having established and implemented a Detailed Project Work Plan;
To supervise the progress of the project, to guide the project staff and to lead them towards accomplishment of the goals and towards success of the project;
To manage the project quality with the corrective actions necessary to ensure that the tasks are completed within time, budget and resource constraints;
To regularly report project activities, especially to the SNSF;
To establish and maintain effective communication between project partners;
To organize project and review meetings;
To perform administration, financial management and accounting of the project;
To evaluate and assess project results, both intermediate and final results;
To promote project visibility and dissemination of project results in relevant international and regional forums.
WP2. Exchange of know-how and experience
The plan is to establish strategic scientific and educational partnership of Serbian and Romanian partners with eminent Swiss institution EPFL, using all the instruments available (mobility of researchers, training courses, workshops and conferences, and joint proposal preparations). Training will be provided through e-learning and visits of lecturers from Swiss partners to Serbian and Romanian institutions. Training topics are defined within research areas of medical and rehabilitation robotics, mobile robotics, micromechanics and given in description of WP2. Short-term visits (1-4 weeks) of selected East European researchers to strategic partner organization are meant to introduce East European researchers into research and management practices of Swiss research institutions, including strategic research planning and IPR protection. These visits and placements will allow East European researchers with the best performance during trainings to expand their knowledge about fundamental theoretical topics and background on research topics. Researchers sent to Swiss strategic partner organization will have an opportunity and obligation to learn how to use research equipment at the premises of the Swiss partners. All of these researchers will be legally bound to return to their institutions after a training or placement and convey their experience to other researchers. Visits and placements will also serve as the beginning of a long-term cooperation, strategic partnership, between Serbian and Romanian institutions and Swiss partner in research fields of mutual interest as well as for the preparation of joint FP7/FP8 project proposals. This WP contributes to the fulfilment of C.1 and C.2.
WP3. Organization of Education and Training Courses from Common Areas of Interest for Partnership Organization
The special task is dedicated to preparation and organization of under-graduate, post-graduate and special courses from the areas of interest for Romanian and Serbian partners concerning medical, rehabilitation (assistive) as well service robotics from invited Swiss and other international lecturers. Swiss partner have stated that they can provide short courses, 4 – 10 hours long, and send 2-3 lecturers per year. Since the research background and interests of these institutions are compatible and partially overlapping, this package will enable constructive combination of lectures on the same or similar topics by different institutions. In other words, where several lecturers give courses on the same broader topic, the lectures will be compatible with little overlap. Hence, our goal in training is to achieve significant increase in competence level of students and researchers, with acceptable effort for each of the Swiss partner. Relevance of all courses is in provisioning of integration of medicine and robotics into multidisciplinary research areas. The purpose of a course is to explain either fundamental issues and mathematical tools and their applications, or advanced research topics. Important courses may be repeated during the project. The major venues are in Belgrade, Serbia and Cluj-Napoca in Romania. Courses will be combined with workshops and conference whenever appropriate. This WP contributes to the fulfilment of C.1 and C.2.
WP4. Acquisition, development and upgrading of research equipment
In order to undertake the state-of-the art research projects in the areas of medical and service robotics some equipment and software is still missing and is planned to be acquired via this project. For new contemporary robotic research topics and applications, the existing laboratory equipment with EEI is not appropriate. The requested equipment that are defined in project annex will be used for building own research potential of Serbian and Romanian partners as well as for support to the educational tasks with young researchers. New educational programs assuming organization of international summer school of robotics will be based on new equipment. This WP contributes to the fulfilment of C.4.
WP5. Organization of workshops and conferences
Apart from the two way secondment of researchers, it is our plan to organize three international workshops, one combining general medical and rehabilitation robotics, the second in service and assistive robotics and applications, and the final workshop where the aggregation of research areas and their application in high-impact ICT project areas will be presented. These workshops will not only facilitate networking and gaining international experience for East European researchers, but will also present the opportunity for all sorts of synergies among the strategic partnership – horizontal networking within the strategic partnership, brain-storming on possible joint research and joint FP7/FP8 proposal preparation, partnership brokerage and consortium building. Presentations and discussions on proposal writing, and soft skills will be held in conjunction with workshops. The topics of workshops and conference will be synchronized with the topics covered in the exchange of know-how and experience. Participants will be Swiss strategic partner and other distinguished researchers from EU and the rest of the world. The outstanding lecturers from various IEEE societies will be invited to participate in workshops. These events will also increase visibility of Pupin and TU Cluj in the ERA. In the third year, as alternative to the third workshop, an invited conference session will be also organized within some of the relevant robotic conferences to be held in EU or abroad. Researchers from the partnership organization will be invited to participate as well as other competent experts. This WP contributes to the fulfilment of C.3.
WP6. Dissemination and promotional activities
The dissemination and promotional activities on the CARE-Robotics project will combine the conventional instruments (scientific publications, press release, project leaflets, posters, TV appearance) with the innovativeness (e-dissemination). In e-dissemination, the innovative Semantic web portal will be developed, facilitating interaction with other stakeholders in the regions (research establishments, industry and SMEs in ICT), serving as point of reference and the best practice example of building-up EU competitiveness. The web-based data base of potential stakeholders will be built, and at least one third of them are expected to take an active part exchange of know-how and experience. Blogs, forums, thematic newsgroups, will be a side activity of future regional center of excellence. Conventional dissemination and promotional activities include publishing papers in leading, international journals and magazines, chapters in books published by distinguished international publishers and papers on international conferences and workshops, which should contribute to the promotion of research results, and establishment of new contacts with renowned Swiss experts and research institutions. Promotional activities (expert group meeting) with targeted industries will also be held regularly (once a year) in order to take into account market-pool factor (apart from science push) and ready East European Institutions for even better technology transfer and more successful industrial outreach. Dissemination of results at universities is to be held every year in order to acquaint faculty members and students of the state-of-research capacity and facilitate potential cooperation. This activity increases overall visibility of Serbian and Romanian institution, its research capacity and facilitates recruitment of researchers. This WP contributes to the fulfilment of C.1 and C.3.
WP7. Quality control and evaluation
The main objective of this work package is to ensure quality of all the work undertaken. The quality standards, together with the monitoring and evaluation procedures will be defined at the early stage of the project. Then, all the work performed and results delivered will be assessed according to the quality standards defined. The self-assessment, by WP7 team, and cross evaluation by strategic Swiss partner of all project’s deliverables will be organized. Since the members of the Steering Committee are the most prominent representatives of Swiss, Serbia and Romania target research, the quality of project outcomes and project progress towards defined objectives (reinforcing and unlocking research potential and integrated into ERA) will be efficiently steered.
Division of tasks
The planned work packages could be divided in the following tasks:
WP1
Task 1.1 Coordination of the project activities
Task 1.2 Financial, administrative and legal management of the project
Task 1.3 Quality and content control
WP2
Task 2.1 Establishing and maintaining an efficient communication with strategic partners
Task 2.2 Organization of mutual exchange of researchers
Task 2.3 Preparation of joint FP7 project proposals
WP3
Task 3.1 Preparation and Organization of undergraduate and graduate courses
Task 3.2 Preparation and Organization of special training courses for researchers
WP4
Task 4.1 Maintenance of existing equipment
Task 4.2 Compiling a list of most needed equipment and software
Task 4.3 Comparative analysis of necessary software and equipment
Task 4.4 Acquiring and upgrading necessary equipment and software
WP5
Task 5.1 Organization of the First CARE-Robotics International Workshop
Task 5.2 Organization of the Second CARE-Robotics International Workshop
Task 5.3 Organization of the Third CARE-Robotics International Workshop or Invited Conference Session on Advanced Robotic Technology in Medicine, Rehabilitation and Service Robotics
WP6
Task 6.1 Development and implementation of Semantic web portal
Task 6.2 Participation in local and international conferences and workshops
Task 6.3 Publication of research papers in leading journals, magazines and books
Task 6.4 Networking with regional stakeholders and universities
Task 6.5 Organizing thematic meetings with industrial partners and SMEs for better industrial outreach
Task 6.6 Promoting the project activities via press and electronic media
WP7
Task 7.1 External monitoring and quality control of the project
Task 7.2 Self-assessment and quality control