Edinburgh Speech Science and Technology

Overview ● What are Early Stage Training Programmes? ● EdSST – the state of play

Overview of EdSST ● Four-year EU Marie Curie Early Stage Training programme that offers exceptional funding for exceptional researchers ● Five long-term fellows, five short-term fellows ● Collaboration between University of Edinburgh (lead partner) and Queen Margaret University College

Marie Curie Early Stage Training ● Aims to – stimulate European Mobility – foster cooperation between partners in consortium of host institutions – encourage young researchers to pursue research projects in another country ● Provides exceptional funding for exceptional researchers

Who can be a Fellow? ● Postgraduate researchers – with less than four years research experience (industry experience does not count) – who do not already hold a PhD – who have been living in the host country for less than 12 out of the past 36 ● Citizens of the host country can only apply if they have been living abroad for more than 48 of the past 60 months ● There is a quota on non-EU students

What do Fellows Get? ● Monetary – monthly living allowance (fixed depending on country) – travel allowance (fixed) – PhDs get career development allowance ● Training and Supervision

Overview ● What are Early Stage Training Programmes? ● EdSST – the state of play

Edinburgh Speech Science and Technology ● 5 Long-Term Fellows (36 months, PhD at Edinburgh or QMUC) and 5 Short-Term Fellows (average stay of 6 months) ● Research Focus: – Articulatory instrumentation and modelling – Speech synthesis – Speech recognition – Spoken Dialogue Systems – Inclusive Design – Augmentative and Alternative Communication

Care and Nurturing of the Common Fellow ● Each fellow has two supervisors, one from QMUC and one from Edinburgh, and a mentor for pastoral care ● Fellows have two detailed personal plans that are reviewed periodically covering – research project – career and skills development

Who are our Long-Term Fellows? ● Edinburgh: – Sebastian Andersson, Naturalness in Speech Synthesis – Joao Cabral, Expressive Speech Synthesis – Martin Tietze, Spoken Dialogue Systems for Older People – Dong Wang, Speech Recognition ● QMUC: – Tanja Kocjancic, Ultrasound of dyspraxic speech

Next Step: Short-Term Fellows ● Two calls, one in October 2006 and one in October 2007 ● will conduct well-defined research project at CSTR and/or SSRC ● 4-12 months duration ● 3-7 Fellows ● Flyer for distribution

Project Timeline ● Start: January 1, 2006 ● Call for Long-Term Fellows: January 2006, closed March 31, 2006 for start in September 2007 ● Calls for Short-Term Fellows in late 2006 and 2007 ● End: December 31, 2009

EdSST events ● Yearly workshops with presentations by fellows and guest speakers ● Weekly research seminars where students – discuss their progress – give talks – present end-of-project reports