Erasmus Mundus Call for Proposals 2010 (EACEA/29/09)

EACH – Excellence in Analytical Chemistry

Erasmus Mundus Call for Proposals 2010 (EACEA/29/09)

A - Award criteria for Erasmus Mundus Masters Courses (EMMC)

A.1Academic quality - Course content (30 %of the max. score)

A large fraction (estimated as 25% to as high as 70% by different surveys)[1],[2]of the chemistry master's degree holders are employed within the area of analytical chemistry worldwide. Analytical chemists who are responsible for the analysis results, quality assurance and technical issues in companies, in government bodies and in research have an important impact on the society. Decision making thus relies on the results produced by analytical chemists and they carry a tremendous responsibility in society.

During the recent years significant changes have been and still are taking place in the measurement, testing and analysis community all over the world. The importance of chemical analyses is constantly increasing. It has been estimated that measurements and chemical analyses[3] make up 4-6% of the GDP in developed countries.[4] More and more legal acts are issued that concern measurements and tests. Fully functional quality system, accredited according to international standards (most often ISO/IEC 17025:2005 or GLP in the case of laboratories) is now a must in many areas (food, environmental, healthcare, citizen safety, hi-tech production, etc) where the laboratories are active. In addition to rigorous documentation the new requirements also include serious demands to the technical quality of measurements and analyses. Chemical analysis is very important from legal and economyperspective. A number of novel analytical techniques have emerged: LC-MS for trace organic contaminants, ICP-MS for trace elements, different sensors, etc. All these changes have led to very good employment perspectives of analytical chemists as evidenced by a recent review.[5]

The changes have been rapid and up to now the education system (in the whole world) has often been unable to respond adequately to the needs of the measurement and testing community. As an indication of the situation, it has been estimated that between 5 and 30% of the results of interlaboratory comparison measurements (the primary means for laboratories to assess and demonstrate their competence) contain large systematic errors and are incorrect[6],[7]. The strong need is also very well indicated by the high popularity of the related practitioner training courses Europe-wide, e.g. the TrainMiC programme[8].

The EACH programme is meant to help in filling this gap by providing the "full package" education in analytical chemistry – on the one hand the fundamentals, metrological and quality assurance aspects, and on the other hand practical skills in specific methods of analytical chemistry.

All four partner countries are at the Baltic Sea and thus the programme also supports fulfilling the European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region,[9] which has internationalization, collaboration between universities and mobility among its main objectives.

All consortium universities have long-standing collaboration traditions with industry and laboratories (see A.1.6 for details) and the EACH programme has been developed in close collaboration with practitioners. EACH thus addresses besides the "classical" analytical chemistry also areas that have emerged during the last decade: metrology in chemistry (MiC) as a core sub-discipline of analytical chemistry and socio-economical aspects of analytical chemistry.

@Siia juurde kirjutada, eeskätt EMQUAL-ist, aga teistest ka.

There are other master's programmes in analytical chemistry in the world. However, the EACH programme differs from other analytical chemistry programmes by the inclusion of the following two modules in addition to the main analytical chemistry part (see programme layout in Annex 1): (1) a metrology module (traceability, measurement uncertainty, etc) and (2) a socio-economical module. These modules contain knowledge that has become especially important for analysis laboratories during the last decade, but is still rarely found in analytical chemistry programmes in the whole world.

This combination is the key to the excellence of this programme. This has been made possible by the complementarity of the competences of the partners (see A.1.3).We are convinced that emergence of the EACH programme on the European higher education landscape increases the competitiveness of the European higher education worldwide.

The programme corresponds to 120 ECTS credits, which are divided as shown in the module scheme outline (See the Annex 1 for the full module scheme):

Module scheme outline

The students spend their first study year at UT (also referred to as a home university) learning the fundamentals of analytical chemistry (including the mainstream practical skills for working in an analytical laboratory), analytical quality and metrology in chemistry. These fields are a particular strength of UT. Start at University of Tartu ensures strong fundament for the students' analytical chemistry education. During first year also levelling activities are carried out. In the beginning of the first semester there is an introductory test to identify students of lower level who will need the levelling course in chemistry.

The second year is more application-oriented and is spent either at UO, UU or AA (also referred to as host universities). Each of these universities is strong in one of the branches of applied analytical chemistry:

-UO: trace element determination, atomic spectroscopy, especially as applied to environmental and food analysis.

-UU: organic analysis, separation methods and mass spectrometry, especially as applied to biological objects.

-AA: sensors, advanced analytical instrumentation and electrochemistry.

The "educational pathway"of EACH is as follows:

This complementarity of the strengths between UT and the second year universities justifies the mandatory mobility – only by studying at two consortium universities is it possible to get both the solid fundamental analytical chemistry education and the strong practical application component.

The choice of the second year university will be made during winter of the first year after finalizing the study results of the first semester. During admission all students are requested to express their wish as in which university they would like to spend the second year. UU, UO and AA will agree among themselves how many 2nd year students each university is prepared to have and will provide short descriptions of master thesis topics.

To help the students in choosing, two activities are foreseen:

1. Representatives of UU, UO and AA will come to Tartu for a short visit (at the end of the first semester, tentatively in Nov-Dec) and explain what specializations are offered at the second year universities.@ehk hoopis talvekoolis seda teha? Mulle jääb siit tekstist praegu siiski mulje, et me ei planeerinud 1. a tudengeid talvekooli kutsuda.
2. The first year courses contain numerous examples and case studies that are provided by the second year universities and are related to the research topics offered to students during the second year.

Principles of nominating students to host universities:

Students are ranked according to their study results of the 1st semester at UT. The students are distributed between the 2nd year universities according to their initial wishes and their ranks (evaluated jointly by the consortium): the better the results of the first semester, the more likely that the student can continue the studies at the desired university. The students can choose the master's thesis topics according to their rankings (higher ranking enables wider choice).

The Winter School is held in January of the @second study year and is composed of short courses on novel and timely topics of analytical chemistry delivered by external scholars, as well as student presentations on their master theses. @Talvekooli korraldus siia, korraldus roteeruv, neljas kohas, igal aastal uues kohas.@Iga ülikool garanteerib, et igal aastal saadab vähemalt 2 oma inimest talvekooli.

As a practical discipline analytical chemistry involves a lot of practical and field work. A part of that will be done with the help of associated members and is explained in section A.1.6.

Master thesis is a scientific or applied research project in the volume of 30 ECTS. Some master's theses topics are performed at university and some are performed in the facilities of the associated members. In the latter case the thesis is jointly supervised by a staff member of the university (or universities, in case the topic is proposed jointly by two universities) and a supervisor at the associated member.

The students who graduate from EACH have excellent possibilities to continue they career either in doctoral studies or in employment by private or public sector.The learning outcomes of the programme:

1. Has systematic understanding of the physical, chemical and metrological foundations, factors, affecting the results, methods for calculating and presenting of results and evaluating their quality for the widespread chemical analysis methods.

2. Has systematic understanding of quality systems, economic and legal aspects of chemical analysis.

3. Has the basic skills necessary for working with the widespread analysis and sample preparation techniques, tuning them according to specific procedures and optimize measurement and analysis procedures, making data evaluation and sampling

4. Is able to define the problem, choose the methods, test themand apply corrective actions in one of the subfields of analytical chemistry:

4.a. Separation science and organic analysis, including multimodal separation techniques, complex samples of biological importance;

4.b. Determination of trace elements using modern atomic spectroscopy techniques in complex samples of environmental, health or technological importance;

4.c. Electroanalysis and electrochemical sensors, including their design, miniaturization and uses for different analytical tasks.

5. Is able to determine the characteristics of analysis procedures and assess their suitability for a given analysis task.

6. Has the knowledge and skills necessary to evaluate the adequacy of measurement results obtained either by him/herself or by others.

7. Has basic proficiency of one of the four languages spoken in the universities involved in the EACH programme and is familiar with the main cultural characteristics of the two countries where studies took place.

Chemists having a strong background in analytical chemistry are more and more needed in industry and in many laboratories in private and public sector[10]. The job descriptions will vary:in some workplaces strong background in organic analytical chemistry is needed (e.g. pharmaceutical industry and clinical laboratories). For these chemistsa high quality education in organic analytical chemistry and bio-analysis is given atUU. Nowadays there is also an increasing demand for chemists having good knowledge in inorganic analysis. Job opportunities are provided, for example, by mining industry that has recently experienced a renaissance. On the other hand,skilful analytical chemists are needed in research and development in high-tech industry where, for example, very low critical element concentrations have to be determined from very pure semiconducting materials. For these chemists, a well suited education is given in UO.

Environmental problems are nowadays a common concern worldwide. Analytical chemistry is an essential tool in studying and solving these problems. Traditionally the sampling and analysis steps are separated from each other and analytical determinations are carried out in a separate laboratory, situated often apart from the sampling site. In future we will see more and more on-line analytical methods in many applications (e.g. when water for household consumption is prepared or in environmental monitoring). These on-line methods are sophisticated including on-line measurement and data transfer to different authorities. When developing on-line measurement systems a very important piece of instrumentation is an analytical sensor (or probe) that gives response to the species measured. For developing such measurement systems, a high quality education dealing with sensors is given in DTU.

Whatever the application fields of the analysisare, more and more skills in data processing and metrology is demanded from analytical chemists. However, in most chemistry programmes in Europe little emphasis is put on these important topics. The EACHprogramme will considerably improve this situation since comprehensive education in the field of metrology in chemistry is given to the students in UT. Therefore we are convinced that chemists graduating from this joint programmehave very good employment opportunities, both in Europe and World-wide.

Chemists with strong background in metrology and specific skills in the fields of analytical chemistry taught in UU, UO or AA have also excellent possibilities to continue their studies for PhD. More and more research is now carried out in large research groups, where researchers from many branches of science are collaborating. It is obvious that analytical chemistry is very often a prerequisite for a successful research work in the different fields of science (especially in natural sciences, engineering and medicine) and PhD level is often required. In Estonia, there is a special support system established to complement and expand the existing scheme of funding for additional doctoral student places. The activity, named DoRa, is intended to fund the studies in Estonia of international doctoral students. Similar schemes are available in Finland, Sweden and Denmark.

High-level and complementary expertise of the consortium universities is the main argument for this consortium composition. The complementarity of the competences is described in detail in A.1.3. Competences of the key academic staff are outlined here.

Prof. Ivo Leito from UT is one of the leading educators and researchers in the field of metrology in chemistry (fundamentals of analytical chemistry) and quality aspects of analytical chemistry in Europe. Under his leadership teaching of metrology in chemistry started at UT in 1999 making UT one of the first universities in Europe where MiC as a separate subject was taught.[11] The first year of the EACH programme will be based on modules from the award-winning study programme Applied Measurement Science,[12] which will provide high quality education in analytical chemistry and metrology in chemistry. Part of the practical works will be carried out in the UT Testing centre accredited to ISO 17025. This will offer students a direct experience of working in accredited laboratory environment. Since most private and public analytical laboratories nowadays are accredited according to ISO 17025 this experience is very valuable.