Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Partnering for the Future of Fire Safety Engineering Education



The International Master of Science in Fire Safety Engineering (IMFSE), an educational program offered jointly by the Universities of Edinburgh, Ghent, and Lund since 2010, has recently been selected as one of only 19 programs (from an original cohort of 50) to be included in the European Joint Master Degree (EJMD) Catalogue for the period 2015-2018.

This unique, two-year program attracts exceptional applicants from all over the world, and prepares its graduates for future leadership roles within the fire safety engineering community. The 99 graduates to date have taken up roles in the UK, Europe, South America, Australasia, and Africa.

The attractiveness of this program amongst top applicants has previously been assured by a number of generous scholarships funded by the European Commission. In recognising the excellence of the IMFSE during its initial four years of funding, the European Commission have pledged ongoing match funding in the amount of €441,000, for nine full scholarships for international students between 2015 and 2018.

To take advantage of this generous match funding offer and guarantee the ongoing success of this world-leading initiative, the IMFSE partners (Edinburgh, Ghent, and Lund) must secure guarantees of match funding totalling at least €147,000 annually, before 6th March 2015.

We have already secured €55,000 in annual match funding for 2015-2018, and we are now seeking additional industry partners to join the IMFSE Consortium. Membership in the IMFSE Consortium will be offered to industry partners contributing a minimum of €10,000 per year for three years.

Consortium members will be invited to host summer internships, offer MSc thesis topics, participate in the annual IMFSE Fire Safety Day, and will be granted unique recruitment access to our exceptional graduates.

Industry partners interested in taking advantage of the opportunity to participate in sustaining and educating the next generation of fire safety engineering leaders are encouraged to contact Profs Bart Merci (bart.merci@ugent.be), Albert Simeoni (a.simeoni@ed.ac.uk), or Luke Bisby (luke.bisby@ed.ac.uk) before 28th February 2015 to learn more.

Additional information on the IMFSE program is available from: www.imfse.ugent.be