ESEM proposes a European Master’s in Biomedical Engineering

ESEM has submitted a grant application for an Erasmus Mundus Master’s course, called CEMACUBE (Common European MAster’s CoUrse in Biomedical Engineering). Goal of this course is to prepare students from Europe and outside Europe for professions in Biomedical Engineering.

For a single university it is difficult to have enough knowledge of all sub-specialisations in Biomedical Engineering to teach their students on an adequate level. Also the required European scope is difficult to gain when students stick to a single university. Therefore a consortium of 6 universities has joined their knowledge and specific expertise into a 2-year European Master’s in Biomedical Engineering. In summary, the goal of this programme is to prepare students to be able to:

·          work in interdisciplinary (engineering – medical) teams

·          work in international and thus intercultural (European) teams

·          communicate effectively with experts in (bio)medicine and technology and with lay people

·          perform fundamental research in Biomedical Engineering.

·          design innovative devices to improve diagnostics and treatment of patients

·          follow a post-Master’s training in Biomedical Engineering

·          perform a PhD-study

·          train themselves continuously (life-long-learning)

During the first year (semester 1 and 2), a student will follow lectures on all biomedical engineering subjects at one of the six universities, the 3rd semester  (s)he will move to one of the participating universities to follow lectures on a specific topic, like medical imaging, tissue engineering or artificial organs. The fourth and last semester, a Master’s project will be performed on this specialisation at one of the 6 participating universities: the Universities of Groningen (The Netherlands), Aachen (Germany), Dublin (Ireland), Ghent, Brussels (Belgium), Prague (Czech Republic). Each student will receive a double degree.

We also have several universities, at which students can do a Master’s project or traineeship, as associate members: ETH Zurich (Switzerland), Universities of Calabria (Italy), Aalborg (Denmark), Compiègne (France), Strathclyde (UK), Patras (Greece), Academy of Sciences in Warsaw (Poland).

And we have several societies as associate member:

·       EAMBES, the European Alliance for Medical and Biological Engineering and Science, active in harmonising educational programmes in BME in Europe,

·      ESEM (of course)

·      Syntens, a Dutch organisation that reinforces the innovative capacity of enterprises. They are partner of EEN, Enterprise Europe Network that promotes contacts between universities and SME-companies and contacts with innovation networks.

Admission criteria are: a Bachelor in engineering and good knowledge of English (all teaching will be given in English), a convincing motivation letter and letters of reference.

Students that followed this European Master’s course in Biomedical Engineering are trained with a European view, experienced in intercultural and interdisciplinary teamwork, have a broad overview of the entire field of BME.

Our application will be judged this summer and the result will be known in September. If our application is successful, we will start in September 2010.  If our application is not successful, we will still start in September 2010, but on a low-budget way. This means that students have to apply for a normal Erasmus grant and have to arrange most things by themselves, since we do not have a coordinator.