Successful conclusion of the international ELBA project, coordinated by the USC and led by CiTIUS

The Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Technology of the University of Primorska (FAMNIT, Slovenia), recently hosted the final meeting of the ELBA project; an international initiative led from the University of Santiago by CiTIUS researcher David E. Losada, who travelled to the city of Koper to participate in this last meeting together with his colleague at the centre Tomás Fernández Pena and Sami Ashour, technician of the Scientific Promotion and Strategy Area of the University of Santiago de Compostela.

The ELBA project has been developed over the last three years under the auspices of the European Commission (EC), the main funding body through the Erasmus+ programme. Its main task has been to improve the training and education of European and Asian researchers in all matters related to the analysis of large amounts of data (Big Data Analytics), such as teacher training, the creation of dedicated laboratories and the establishment of networking networks, among others.

Within the framework of ELBA ('Establishment of Training and Research Centres and Development of Courses on Intelligent Big Data Analytics in Central Asia'), high-profile specialists from universities in Uzbekistan Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have been involved, all sharing a common goal: to implement a multidisciplinary package of modular courses for bachelor and master students at the 10 partner universities in Central Asia.

"Throughout these three years we have had the opportunity to get to know the teaching and research methodologies of a good number of universities in Central Asia", says David Losada, main responsible for the project; "together with the other two European partners in Slovenia and Italy" (University of Primorska and Politecnico di Torino), "we have managed to bring added value to these institutions in the field of Big Data Analysis through the training of their staff and our active participation in the supervision of their researchers, as well as in the design of new collaboration networks between different universities and technological or research centres".

The CiTIUS researcher gave a positive assessment of the results of ELBA after the closing meeting of the project: "in Koper it was very satisfying to learn about the current state of progress in the universities of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan," he explains. "Many of them produced significant advances in their curricula to accommodate the suggestions and improvements we made from the European universities in the consortium, which had an impact at different levels, from the creation of new subjects in existing studies to the creation of completely new specialisation profiles in their bachelor's or master's degrees," he points out.