French-german doctoral college

Paris Ouest (Nanterre) - Potsdam

CDFA 01-06 :

First Period: 2006 - 2008,

Second Period: 2009 - 2011

Aims of this international doctoral college:

Integration of doctoral students into a common larger research program.
Scientific education by specialized serial lectures, short term and long term visits of guest scientists, workshops
Increase of the mobility of young researchers (a typically 6-12 month's stay at the foreign partner university).
Possibility of novel international collaborations

Mathematics research domains we are concerned with are:

Stochastic Processes, Mathematical Physics, Spectral Theory.

More precisely, both teams develope various analytical and probabilistic tools to be applied to several concrete situations: evolutionary dynamics, random medium, reciprocal processes, classical and quantum mechanics.

Until now we organized:

4 workshops at the University Potsdam and 1 in Nanterre.
5 research lectures (Patrick Cattiaux, Christian Léonard, Sylvie Roelly and Markus Klein).
several short stays of the students in the other country.
two PhD in German-French co-advising (Sophie Pénisson and Rüdiger Murr)

The workshops provide intensive insights into research topics of the different partners. They are good opportunities for our students to practice lectures in front of researchers. They also promote friendly relationship, an important ingredient for future cooperations.

The research lectures provide our students the basic tools which are needed for working with their foreign advisers.

This bilateral cooperation is the first one between the Institute of Mathematics of Potsdam University and one University in Paris, which is the place in France with the highest concentration of mathematical activities.

Potsdam is very attractive for researchers in Mathematical Physics, because there is a long tradition in this field since A. Einstein. Moreover, the close distances Nanterre/Paris and Potsdam/Berlin reinforce the attractiveness of both universities towards foreign PhD students, since the scientific life of Paris and Berlin in probability theory and mathematical physics is very intensive.