ETH Zurich was one of the first universities in Europe to introduce a curriculum in CSE. This graduate study is presently in its forth year and well established. Students that have completed their undergraduate studies in Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Material Science can proceed with this interdisciplinary, application oriented master study. Presently, an inter-departmental structure is being established to further promote and coordinate CSE activities in the research units university-wide at ETH.

On another side, at present a process of reorganization and administrative restructuring of the education and science in the countries of Eastern Europe is in progress aiming at adaptation to and compatibility with the corresponding European standards as well as meeting the requirements and modern trends in the development of education and science.

The main objective of the proposed IP is the establishment of CSE in Bulgaria and Macedonia under the guidance of ETH Zurich.

The principal aims of the project are the improvement and the coordination of research and education in Computational Sciences and Engineering at the academic and university units from BG and MK involved in the project.

The basic goals of the project are:

1. to improve, strengthen and reorganize the research and education of CSE in three universities in Bulgaria (BG) and Macedonia (MK), to increase the level of research and education in these universities up to international standards and to provide competence and international contacts;
    

2. to involve in the above mentioned research and educational processes a consortium of internationally recognized scientists from the Bulgarian Academy of Science (BAS) strengthening thus the educational activities in BAS and the cooperation between IMI and ISC;
    

3. to strengthen the links between the institutions involved and to support their efforts to provide a suitable environment for the establishment of CSE.

Problems to discuss and solve are:

• how to improve, strengthen and (wherever necessary) reorganize the research and education in CSE

and

• how to integrate research and education in the current institutes and departments, and curricula, respectively.

The specific goals of the project are directed towards:

• fostering collaboration and interaction among mathematicians, computer scientists and engineers; strengthening the national, regional and international collaboration in CSE;
• establishment of a standard curriculum in CSE, introduction and implementation of CSE;
• elaboration of course material in CSE;
• improvement and strengthening the research and education of CSE;
• enhancement of the training activities.

To improve CSE in education two (non-exclusive) approaches are envisaged. First, the existing curricula in computer science, engineering, etc. should emphasize more the trend towards CSE. Higher emphasis should be given to software engineering, to the training in modern software tools for symbolic and numerical computation and simulation, to validated numerics for specific engineering problems, or to discrete mathematics. Second, a full-fledged CSE curriculum could be designed along the lines of the ETH model.

In order to have a platform for approaching these issues a

"Center for Computational Sciences and Engineering" (COSE)

is to be founded in Sofia. This center will be instrumental to increase the level of research and education in CSE with the involved institutions up to international standards. COSE will continue to exist after the end of this project. The institution will act as a focal point in the further development of CSE in BG and MK providing competence and international contacts in the field of scientific computation and engineering.