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iPEN's 1st Progress Meeting took place at HIT

 

Members of the iPEN (Innovative Photonics Education in Nanotechnology) project held a 2-day meeting at HIT.


This meeting was the 1st of several that are scheduled during the lifetime of the project – each hosted by a different partner institution – and focused on the progress achieved to date and coordination of the following steps and activities assigned to the various partners. The participants also took advantage of their visit to tour the campus and look into some of the labs and research centres at HIT and get a glimpse of the facilities and meet a variety of researchers.

 


iPEN is a Capacity Building project, part of the European ERASMUS+ programme. The application submitted in 2017 by the consortium, consisting of a number of academic institutions from Europe (TEI Crete, Politecnico di Milano, University of Twente, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg) and Israel (amongst them HIT, The Technion, Weizmann Institute of Science, Bar Ilan University and Shamoon College of Engineerin), was approved with a budget of almost €1M for three years.

The Coordinator of this consortium is Dr Konstantinos Petridis of TEI Crete. The Faculty of Engineering, headed by its Dean Prof. Yosef Ben Ezra, is taking part in this project and Dr. Amir Handelman has been appointed as its coordinator at HIT. The Research, Development and External Relations Authority is supporting the project from its organizational and administrative aspect with the assistance of Bracha Einhoren.

 


This project's aim is to promote knowledge among students and young researchers in the fields of Optics, Photonics and Nanotechnology. New academic courses will be developed (including novel study materials and methods of instruction) to be shared by the various members of the consortium. The faculty of Engineering is in charge of developing 3 of those courses: Optical Engineering Principles; Nanotechnologies & Nanodevices and RF and Intergraded Photonic Circuits.

Being invited to take part in this project serves as proof of an international recognition of the Faculty of Engineering's achievements in the scientific and research arena and provides a gate to a multitude of options for further collaboration with other European universities and research centres, including exchange of staff and students. It also contributes to HIT's reputation in the field of innovation and, of course, is an additional platform for implementing its Internationalisation Strategy.