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Bridge projects

Bridge projects are joint projects between researchers and industry/public organizations with the goal of working with the application of cutting-edge research in society. 

Bridge projects run for 1-4 years with a focus of either disseminating knowledge and new technology from universities to companies or disseminating challenges and cases from companies (and industries) to universities.  

A bridge project has typically a total budget between DKK 3-15 million.

Benefits of participating in a bridge project 
  • Access to top experts in computer science. 

  • Influence on which application areas should be addressed by the researchers

  • Firsthand access to the best PhD and master students 

  • Education opportunity for your employees 

  • Typically, first-hand negotiation rights over potential IP 

  • Extensive network and many more benefits. 

Rules
  • We are interested in collaborating with both public and private organizations and other research groups 

  • The topic of an explore project is required to fall within one of our research areas and support our overall mission 

  • We can only fund the universities and partners behind DIREC. 

  • If you would like to collaborate, we expect that you will match our investment either in terms of hours spend on the common project or financially. 

  • We would like to work across universities and partners in order to initiate projects that span multiple research areas and universities.  

Interested?

You cannot send a proposal to DIREC, but you need to form a proposal in collaboration with one or more of the workstream managers listed on the page.

Explore projects

Explore projects are small agile research projects with the purpose to quickly screen new ideas within or between the core thematic topics of DIREC. Explore projects run for 1-6 months with a focus on identifying and creating new research challenges and areas.  
 
Typically, an explore project will bring together researchers of different seniority (professors, post-docs and PhD students), from different core disciplines and often with collaboration of invited external researchers in order to identify new research challenges on the boarder of established research areas – or to explore the potential of using new research and technology for practical application.  
 
Projects can be stand-alone projects or part of a sequential evolution of projects. For example, an Explore project may be a natural start to investigate into a new field or topic, which can lead to the creation of a SciTech or Bridge project. 
 

Rules
  • We are interested in collaborating with both public and private organizations and other research groups 

  • The topic of the explore project need to fall within one of our research areas and support our overall mission 

  • We can only fund the universities and partners behind DIREC. 

  • If you would like to collaborate, we expect that you will match our investment either in terms of hours spend on the common project or financially. 

  • We would like to work across universities and partners, hence we found project that spans multiple research areas and multiple universities.  

     
Interested? 

If you are interested in an explore project, please contact either the relevant workstream leader, our manager Thomas Riisgaard Hansen or send an email to info@direc.dk   


SciTech projects

Science and Technology projects will address one or more key challenges in society which will be potentially instrumental in achieving increased national economic growth and welfare. This includes possible challenges for businesses and the public sector. 

The aim is to create theoretical and/or methodological breakthroughs to advance the field of the researched topic(s) and provide a foundation for subsequent bridge projects jointly with public institutions and industrial partners and thus to create impact and visibility.  

Science and Technology projects run for 3-4 years with focus on one or more of the core thematic topics of DIREC depending on the nature of the societal challenge and research disciplines. 

Rules
  • SciTech projects are open to researchers from the universities and GTS institution behind DIREC and not just the people listed on this page. 

  • The topic of the explore project need to fall within one of our research areas and support our overall mission 

  • The universities will need to match the investment from DIREC 

  • We would like to work across universities and partners, hence we found project that spans multiple research areas and multiple universities.  

  • Please note that we do have more resources for funding bridge project so consider involving external public or private organizations in your proposal.  
 
Interested?
  • You cannot send a proposal to DIREC, but you form a proposal in collaboration with one or more of the workstream managers listed on the page.  

  • If you are interested in a SciTech project, please contact the relevant workstream manager, our manager Thomas Riisgaard Hansen or send an email to info@direc.dk  


Increasing computer science capacity

The DIREC education activities will support master and PhD capacity building and the exploitation of capacity in industry and society.

In particular:

  • Create educational activities at the master and PhD level in digital technologies for building knowledge and research capacity that address Danish needs and with paths for capacity exploitation 

  • Create attractive international profile to foster inbound PhD recruitment. 


The DIREC centre will address these challenges focusing on the following objectives: 

  1. Increase the number of master and PhD graduates 

  2. Address and actively work towards improving gender diversity 

  3. Strengthen researcher-student-industry collaboration to support exploitation of capacity. 

Interested? 

If you have ideas for projects that will increase capacity within computer science, please contact either Thomas Hildebrandt, Manager for PhD Training Network, Mikkel Baun Kjærgaard,  Manager for Master Training Network or Thomas Riisgaard Hansen, DIREC Director or send an email to info@direc.dk

Creation of science-based digital startups

To support value creation (short-term e.g. business value and long-term e.g. societal value) and the commercialization of the research carried out in DIREC a workstream is established with focus on innovation and entrepreneurship.  With a focus on entrepreneurship, we bring results from the DIREC research to market and support start-up initiatives. 

This workstream will be cross-cutting and support both the core thematical workstreams as well as workstreams within education and capacity building. 

Interested?

If you have ideas for projects that will support entrepreneurship related to science-based digital startups, please contact Mark Riis, WS Manager of Entrepreneurship, Thomas Riisgaard Hansen, DIREC Director or mail to info@direc.dk 


Work with DIREC as a researcher

DIREC provides a unique opportunity to work with a network of leading researchers across Denmark. 

  • Our partners have several job openings especially as research assistant, PhD student and Post doc students. Furthermore, we have often several tenure positions. Please follow DIREC on LinkedIn for more opportunities. 


  • If you are a researcher working with the focus area of DIREC, please consider joining one of our workstreams by contacting the workstream manager or your local representative in a workstream. 


  • If you have an idea for a project within the scope of DIREC, please contact the relevant workstream manager to learn about collaborating with DIREC and read about our Explore, Bridge, SciTech, Entrepreneurship and Educational projects on this page.

Interested in collaborating?

Send an email to thomas.r.hansen@direc.dk
and we will get back to you.

Digital Research Centre Denmark is a unique collaboration between the eight Danish universities and the Alexandra Institute supported by the Innovation Fund Denmark.

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