Robotics and Automation Magazine

June 2006


In our debut column of March 2003 we briefly referred to the "European tradition" of Summer Schools (although quite a few of them take place in the Fall or Spring!). Since then, this trend has seriously increased under the EURON umbrella that has supported twenty (20) schools during the last four (4) years, each attended by an average number of 30 students. In 2005 the following schools were supported:

  • "Modeling and Control of Complex Dynamical Systems " organized by Claudio Melchiorri and Stefano Stramigioli,  July 18 - 22, University of Bologna Residential Centre of Bertinoro, Italy,
  • "Perception and Sensor Fusion in Mobile Robotics" organized by Primo Zingaretti, September 1 - 7, Ancona, Italy,
  • "Surgical Robotics" organized by Etienne Dombre, September 7 - 14, Montpellier, France,
  • "Robotics and Neuroscience" organized by Angel del Pobil, Yiannis Demiris and  Jose M. Carmena, September 19 - 23, Benicàssim, Spain, and
  • "Rescue Robotics Camp" organized by Daniele Nardi, October 29 - November 2, Rome, Italy,

while the " Telesurgery" winter school, organized by Jose Azorin, Miguel Hernández, Alícia Casals and Mamoru Mitsuishi is scheduled from March, 26 - 31, 2006 in Benidorm, Spain.

These schools are primarily meant to address the needs of PhDstudents but are essentially open to all as they are an efficient way to educate young robotics researchers by making the most recent knowledge accessible to them, taught by world widely known experts.

EURON Schools, being a core element in EURON's educational program, are coordinated under the umbrella of the EURON Education key area and organized by individuals and interest groups. An annual budget of 45 k€ is reserved to sponsor 4-5 EURON Schools per year. The teaching material of the EURON Schools is made available to future use not only for the participants of the school but also for the rest of the robotics community.

Calls for EURON Schools come out twice a year: in January for Summer Schools and in May for Winter Schools. Applications containing a draft program, list of speakers and a budget must be submitted to the EURON coordinator for approval by the Board.

The authors of this column want to thank the EURON Schoolscoordinator, Prof. Roland Siegwart ( http://asl.epfl.ch) for providing material for this report. For further information, please visit http://www.euron.org/activities/schools/index.html

Parties interested in promoting certain activities via this column can contact either Kostas Kyriakopoulos ( http://users.ntua.gr/kkyria, ) or Bruno Siciliano (http://wpage.unina.it/sicilian, ).

Contributed by Kostas Kyriakopoulos and Bruno Siciliano

Getting Involved


We hope that you will get involved in many of EURON's activities and encourage others to do so as well.

Attend Meetings


Attending meetings is an excellent way of making contacts and friends within the community. These contacts are normally interesting, and may also be useful!

EURON Schools are aimed at PhD students so are particularly good for people wishing to deepen an already existing interest. [ More details  ... ]

Contribute to the Initiatives


Your knowledge and resources are valuable — please consider sharing them with others by adding items to the databases, contributing your opinions to the roadmap and benchmarking initiatives, and your information to this website.

Especially, please contribute to the Video Collection for Students asap.

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Use the Resources


Make use of the resources that EURON offers. Much of the information is freely available to all, but for other resources you have to be a EURON member. Apply for the grants, use the databases and the contacts, apply for the awards, use the mailing lists.

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