The EIT-Labelled Master Programme in Sustainable Materials (SUMA) has received funding from EIT Raw Materials to continue educating high-level European and international engineering and science students in the field of materials science and engineering. Organised by an international consortium comprising of 7 academic and 2 industry partners, the SUMA programme contributes to a solid EIT RawMaterials educational backbone at the Master level by forming innovators and entrepreneurs for the raw materials industry with a deep expertise in sustainable materials and processes. The consortium is led by KU Leuven (Prof. Bart Blanpain and Katarzyna Janusz) and receives funding of 3,1 million EUR for the period 2021-2024.
Building the circular economy of tomorrow
SUMA covers all aspects of the materials life cycle addressing materials development and substitution, materials selection, materials production and transformation, materials degradation, materials recycling across the material families both for structural and functional materials.
SUMA also integrates innovation & entrepreneurship education into the curriculum in order to equip SUMA students with the necessary, in-demand I&E knowledge, skills, attitudes and competences enabling students to contextualise and apply materials science disciplinary knowledge to real industrial and societal challenges.
This has been acknowledged and certified by EIT as SUMA successfully obtained the EIT-Label in 2016, a quality seal awarded to Master and PhD programmes which demonstrate excellence in I&E education.
Increasing innovation and digitization skills
The SUMA master programmes started in September 2016. The new phase of the project will add several components in order to strengthen the existing curricula, keep SUMA relevant and pioneering, and align SUMA with the strategic direction of EIT RawMaterials and its Academy.
These new focal points that will be introduced are
- increasing skills in digitalisation by connecting data sciences with materials engineering and thereby leveraging materials knowledge to improve processes and products;
- further solidifying I&E knowledge, skills and attitude by strengthening start-up creation in the SUMA student population;
- extending SUMA’s geographical scope by adding two new partners from a RIS country: AGH University of Science and Technology (AGH, Poland, Krakow) and the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM, Spain). Atlantic Copper Chair organised by UPM will give lectures in metallurgy to bachelor students – potential SUMA candidates.
Finally, SUMA will continuously creating opportunities for the students to participate in networking and matchmaking events with EIT RawMaterials partner companies, linking students (job seekers) with industry (talent seekers).
The SUMA consortium consists of KU Leuven (Belgium), MU Leoben (Austria), University of Trento (Italy), University of Milano-Biccoca (Italy), INP Grenoble (France), AGH Krakow University of Technology (Poland), Polytechnic University of Madrid (Spain), Atlantic Copper (Spain) and UMICORE (Belgium).
