Summary of the project

The project, involves Partners that are Higher education institutions or companies from EU and Asia countries (Region 6) The consortium will have as a main objective to prepare a research and didactic modules based on the study of physical, and biomedical models. These outputs can be implemented in Master Degree and Doctoral Courses in partner institutions to improve student’s interdisciplinary competences in several scientific fields: pure mathematics, numerical analysis, mathematical physics, biomedicine, statistics and informatics. The priorities of EU countries clearly indicate the need of curriculum development in the fields of Mathematics and statistics, Information and Communication technologies, Health. Similar needs are fixed in the list of main types of curricula to be developed in Region 6. Our choice of improving student’s capacities in these scientific directions is determined by the increasing need to create and develop a curricula of a Biomathematician in partner countries. The research field of biomathematics has been developed intensively for several decades. The complexity of the biomathematical processes requires new models and development of new tools to study them. Some of the partners have already well-established groups of researchers with seminal results having a strong impact in the research field of biomathematics. Typically, they have also a well-organized structure of Master and PhD courses preparing high level of young researchers. The experience of some of the partners in the project having tradition and experience in this field shall be of special importance. The challenging problem is to develop tools and modules that can be implemented in the existing Master and PhD programs capable to train creative, fully independent investigators in mathematical, theoretical, and computational biology who can initiate research in both applied mathematics and their chosen biomedical specialty. This is reflected in a curriculum providing Master degree-level competence in biology or a biomedical specialty; substantial training in applied mathematics, statistics, and computing; and appropriate biomathematics courses and research experience. The purpose is to prepare examples of best practices that give concrete examples of math models in biomedicine, meanly in the fields of neurology, genetics and hematology. The models can be implemented as starting points of master degree thesis or modules in existing courses of Master degree programs. Among possible research directions we have: musical therapy, math models based on Kuramoto equation, math models based on applications of Navier Stokes equations to blood disorders, manifold learning and nonlinear dimensionality reduction (NLDR). The necessity of such a project is based on the fact that the need of specialists having interdisciplinary competences in bio - mathematics is increasing, but the preparation of bio mathematicians in most of EU and Asia countries is on very low level and therefore the main goal is to stimulate this process in partner countries.

Next we describe shortlythe specific needs or problem/s which the project intends to solve in each Partner Country organization.

University of Pisa: There is a basis of generating and developing the Biomathematical curricula, since there is an increasing interest of students to prepare Undergraduate, Master and Doctoral Thesis studying biomedical models. There is also well – prepared group of specialists actively making a research in the field of non – linear Landau – Ginzburg equations, non – linear Kuramoto models in Neuroscience, interaction of specialists in medicine, music and mathematics in the field of musical therapy and related models and good practices in the real application of the musical therapy, study of math models of fluid dynamics and their biomedical applications. There are existing Master degree courses, Summer schools, Workshops devoted to math Modelling in biomedicine and math physics. However, there is lack of variety of courses on math modelling and moreover there is no biomathematical curricula determined in the Master Degree program in Mathematics.

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The resources planned for the project have three different directions:

• Investment to promote an appreciation for and interest in biomedical mathematical models and provide additional training of PhD students in specific areas. The purpose is also to develop ways to disseminate scientific discovery into public health and community applications. 
• Other resources are planned for problems where multiple expertise is needed to focus on a single complex problem in biomedical research.
• Finally, some resources to invite public and private nonprofit organizations to evaluate the possibilities for practical applications and collection of feedback materials and result needed for further development of the models and possibility for their application