European Study Group with Industry in Innsbruck

The 149th European Study Group with Industry (ESGI) took place from March 4-8, 2019 at the University of Innsbruck. Initiated in Oxford in 1968, the ESGI brings together industrialists, students, postdocs and young academic researchers to work for a week in mathematical modeling and enhance their collaborative and communication skills in a multinational and multidisciplinary environment. During the week, researchers from around Europe work together with industrials on several intriguing problems in order to model and solve them. In this regard, the term “industry” includes Engineering, Material Sciences, Big Data Technology, Biotechnologies, Optimization of industrial processes, Transport, Services, Medicine and any other activity which has an economic or social value.

The objectives pursued for the ESGI in Innsbruck this year were:

1. Find solutions and bring new insights to challenging industrial problems;
2. Establish lasting and productive working relations between academia and industry;
3. Propose new lines of research based on business challenges;
4. Reinforce the importance of mathematics in industry and mathematical profiles companies stimulate greater awareness of the power of mathematics to provide solve real-world problems.
   
   

Prof. Markus Haltmeier and Prof. Alexander Ostermann from the Department of Mathematics of the University of Innsbruck organized the event together with AIANI´s partner institutions in Israel, Holon Institute of Technology and ORT Braude College. The Innsbruck hosts welcomed researchers from around Europe to the Technical Campus of the University of Innsbruck, including their Israeli colleagues and co-organizers Prof. Aviv Gibali from the ORT Braude College and Prof. Refael Barkan from the Holon Institute of Technology. Both came via the Erasmus+ staff mobility program to teach at ESGI and work along colleagues and students in finding solutions to five different problems posed to them by the industry. The stay of the two partners was organized via AIANI.
The study week was a great success and the researchers were able to find solutions for most of the projects or at least get closer in solving pressuring problems.