Opportunities – EPICUR Alliance

The EPICUR Alliance offers three key research-related opportunities:

- The EPICUR Hubs, offering professional development opportunities for master’s students and early career researchers and focusing on EPICUR’s priority areas of Sustainable Transformation, Global Health, European Values and Future Intelligence
- The EPICommunity platform, fostering collaboration and professional growth for early career researchers across Europe
- The EPICUR Seed Funding scheme to stimulate research partnerships between the nine partner universities

EPICUR Hubs

EPICUR is currently developing research-oriented learning, training and networking offers for the following target groups:

Master’s students interested in pursuing a research career
Early career researchers (ECRs)

These new offerings will be launched in April 2025 in the context of the EPICUR Hubs.

The EPICUR Hubs serve as primarily virtual centres of transnational academic and research collaboration, providing robust support for the professional development of future and early career researchers. They focus on research- and transfer-oriented training, interdisciplinary engagement, and cross-institutional collaboration. The Hubs are designed to benefit master’s students considering a research career and early career researchers (ECRs ), which includes doctoral candidates, postdocs, and junior professors.

By integrating the latest scientific discoveries into educational programmes, the EPICUR Hubs aim to foster research and innovation across Europe. They provide a dynamic environment for master’s students and ECRs to develop the skills necessary for successful research careers both inside and outside of academia. The Hubs offer a combination of virtual, blended, and onsite components, such as courses, workshops, networking sessions and platforms (such as the EPICommunity), and research conferences. This approach enhances the EPICUR learning offer with innovative teaching and mobility formats hosted across the nine partner universities.

In addition to providing enhanced training and cross-institutional networking opportunities for current and future researchers, the EPICUR Hubs aim to foster intersectoral exchanges and community engagement with regional stakeholders.

The Hubs specialise in four priority areas:

1. Sustainable Transformation: Focuses on transitioning to sustainable living and business practices

2. European Values: Emphasizes human rights, democracy, diversity, and solidarity

3. Global Health: Addresses global health challenges and promotes equitable health outcomes

4. Future Intelligence: Explores the creation and evolution of intelligent systems and technologies

These thematic areas are complemented by transversal and research skills offerings, ensuring comprehensive training and support for diverse research career paths.

The pilot topic for the EPICUR Hubs is Sustainable Transformation, chosen for its relevance and potential impact. The launch of the Sustainable Transformation Hub, along with various transversal offerings and the launch of the Hubs virtual space, is planned for April 2025, followed by a research conference in October 2025 at KIT. An assessment of the pilot will take place between April and June 2026, leading to the development of a roadmap for future thematic hubs.

Training programmes and courses

In order to enhance the EPICUR learning offer for research-oriented master’s students and ECRs from across the alliance, the EPICUR Hubs will feature a portfolio of courses and training programmes. These will include a wide range of transversal courses, innovation courses, challenge-based training programmes, seasonal (summer/winter) schools and thematic courses linked to the Hubs pilot topic, Sustainable Transformation. By participating in these offers, master’s students and ECRs will have the opportunity to expand their network within the European university landscape, work interdisciplinarily with peers from across Europe, and build valuable skills for their later careers. The portfolio, which is due to be launched in April 2025, will be offered within the context of the EPICUR Hubs and also featured in the EPICUR course catalogue. Check back soon for updates!

Research opportunities portal

The Hubs will also include the launch of a research opportunities portal, featuring available research stays at the partner universities, as well as intersectoral exchange opportunities with external research institutions, civil society, industry and government in the EPICUR partner regions. Such academic and intersectoral exchange opportunities will prepare master’s students and ECRs for diverse research careers in academia, industry, and other sectors of society, strengthening their professional networks and broadening their career prospects.

EPICommunity

Join EPICUR in building a vibrant community of Early Career Researchers (ECRs) from across Europe. The EPICommunity platform provides ECRs with innovative tools that promote autonomy and enhance visibility by recognising key skill sets, offering networking opportunities through a new database and facilitating blended mobility formats.

With EPICommunity, ECRs are invited to co-create a prototype for a European social network of researchers to support their matchmaking and collaboration. It is based on an attractive gamification design that reshapes the assessment of researchers.

Sign up now to showcase your research and explore opportunities to collaborate on international, cross-disciplinary projects that capitalise on the collective expertise of our alliance.

Hint: Be sure to join as a member (rather than subscriber) to get full access to all the features. While a subscriber will have access to the profiles of full users (i.e. “members”) and the entities search, a member will have access to additional features, namely entities interactions, matchmaking and recommendations and peer review, resulting in a full EPICommunity experience.

JOIN EPICommunity