EuroHPC traineeships in Hosting Entities, Centres of Excellence and Competence Centres, SMEs and Industry

Topic description

ExpectedOutcome:

The action will contribute to bridge the gap between education and labour market, providing future HPC users across the EU with the opportunity to work in HPC environments, having access to the latest technological developments and valuable know-how. Each participant accepted on a traineeship will be able to use HPC technologies and applications and find jobs in current and future sectors of the economy that use supercomputing.

The objective is to train future HPC specialists to acquire the necessary advanced digital skills needed for the deployment of a specific technology, by providing traineeships in either an HPC competence centre, companies or SMEs using HPC systems or EuroHPC Hosting Entities.

This programme will be an opportunity for the trainee to acquire valuable work experience, but also to become proficient and put in practice the advanced HPC skills. Trainees will be trained ‘on the job’ to develop their skillsets in HPC infrastructure development, applications and software develop. This action is in line with the objectives of the Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027 and more specifically the strategic priority to enhance digital skills and competences for the digital transformation, boosting advanced digital skills among young people.

The topic will provide future HPC users access to training and working experience competence centres, companies, SMEs or EuroHPC Hosting Entities by being trained ‘on-the-job’.

This action builds on the successful pilot project “Digital Opportunity Traineeships”, continued under Erasmus+ as part of the Digital Education Action Plan, and it will focus on highly specialised skills, notably in HPC.

A consortium of different HPC actors would organise over the period of 4 years:

• A number of paid traineeships within their own organisations
• As a second stage, would organise paid traineeships to be allocated in other HPC organisations involved in the EuroHPC ecosystem who are not members of the consortium

The traineeships are open to applicants under 40 year old, willing to work in Europe, (as long as they have met all local immigration and labour laws in the countries of the EuroHPC JU Participating States). Trainees have to prove an interest in HPC technologies and applications. The traineeships will serve to train the next generation of HPC High level support staff to work in the private or public sector.

A consortium made up of different actors in the European HPC sector who would organise traineeships in national HPC competence centres, companies, SMEs, European & EuroHPC Participating States Supercomputing Centres or a EuroHPC Hosting Entities established in EuroHPC Participating States.

Funding will cover traineeships in HPC facilities in companies, SMEs, HPC Hosting entities and centres of excellence and competence centres who make up the consortium.

This consortium would:

• Create and design traineeship opportunities within their organisations
• Identify traineeships opportunities in national HPC competence centres, companies, SMEs, European & EuroHPC Participating States Supercomputing Centres or a EuroHPC Hosting Entities
• Promote the action widely to ensure a minimum of 50 participants per annum
• Identify prospective candidates who are willing to participate in these traineeships
• Interview and allocate trainees to particular traineeships
• Ensure that each trainee has a mentor in the organisation who can guide them in the tasks they are doing
• Place each selected trainee in the HPC place of work for up to six months. The traineeships would last a minimum of 3 months and a maximum of 6 months long.
• Pay, either directly or via the hosting organisation, thes selected trainees for the period of traineeship (this would include subsistence and accommodation)
• Support any reasonable in-company expenses (tbc) that the training organisation incurs.
• Provide each trainee with a end of traineeship EuroHPC certificate

The organisation hosting the trainee would:

• Invest in the traineeships in English with funds provided by the selected consortium
• Provide him/her with a ‘mentor’ who works in same organisation and can guide
• Allocate tasks which will help the trainee expand their skills in the field of HPC
• Depending on employment rules in the host country, pay each selected trainee with a bursary provided by the selected Consortium which will allow them to live close to the job.

Proposals should clearly demonstrate how the consortium will work with other EuroHPC projects focussing on skills and training actions such as the EuroHPC Masters programme.