IDEA League summer schools

Friday, 25 April 2025 at 14:00 (CET)

8 – 13 September 2025

2024 has been the hottest year on record globally (for now). In the Lombardy region, the annual average temperature anomaly for 2024 is +1.5°C compared to the 1991-2020 reference period. The hottest month was August, with +3°C compared to the climatological average, making it the second hottest August since 1991, only surpassed by August 2003 (ARPA Lombardia, 06/09/2024). The climatic conditions in Italy are changing. Northern Italy, from the Po Valley to the Alps, is one of the key regions where climate change can have a serious and detrimental impact, with severe consequences for water, agricultural yields, and human health, especially for vulnerable social groups. Some research is beginning to imagine future scenarios of internal vertical migration, with temporary or stable groups of people moving from the hot, polluted, and dry plains to the mountains (Membretti et al. 2024). The signs of these processes are currently weak but present, while the needs of the 20 million people who live and will continue to live here are more visible and urgent. How can we ensure these places’ future liveability and quality of life? How can natural resources and agricultural land be preserved? How can cities adapt to this permanent new condition and be more equal? These issues are particularly challenging for intermediate territories, such as small and medium-sized towns in rural areas, where buildings in historical centres are losing value, the public welfare system is under pressure, mobility is essentially dependent on the car, old abandoned spaces coexist with new productive and logistical expansions, and agriculture is highly mechanized and industrialized. This workshop invites students to reflect on different visions of the future and imagine how adaptation strategies will change our cities, starting from their public and open spaces. Looking at the specific local situation of Crema, a town of 30,000 inhabitants in the centre of the Lombardy region, 50 km from Milan, we will explore radical approaches and solutions for healing cities by using existing spaces and resources differently. We will meet experts, practitioners, and local administrations dealing with heat, water scarcity, and climate change. We will explore places and talk to people. We will engage with different themes, urban conditions, and materials. We will experience the fatigue of hot summer days.

More information: https://idealeague.org/healingourtowns_2025/

Crema, Italy

tbd

There are no registration and accommodation fees. Students from IDEA League member universities selected to participate in a summer school only have to pay for their own travel costs where applicable.

Application is open to Master and PhD Students of the member universities of the IDEA League Alliance http://idealeague.org :

• Chalmers University of Technology
• ETH Zürich
• Politecnico di Milano
• RWTH Aachen
• TU Delft

In order to apply you need to login to SiROP with your university account. When your email belongs to a partner university the affiliation is created automatically.

After successful affiliation you can return to this event and you will find a button "Apply" right at the top.

If you need to affiliate manually please see: http://bit.ly/sirop-affiliate

More information: https://idealeague.org/healingourtowns_2025/

For more information please read the FAQ:

https://idealeague.org/students/summerschools/

If you have any further questions regarding the application process, please contact the organizer office@idealeague.org.

Friday, 25 April 2025 at 14:00 (CET)

30 June – 4 July 2025

This summer school is part of the EASYGO-ON Training Weeks, a series of annual training programs hosted by IDEA League universities, focusing on key aspects of geothermal operations. This edition emphasizes geophysical monitoring as a critical tool for ensuring the efficiency, safety, and sustainability of geothermal energy production. Geophysical monitoring methods, including a large variety of techniques (e.g., seismics and electromagnetics), play a vital role in geothermal exploration and production, in tracking fluid movement, detecting induced seismicity, and assessing subsurface reservoir performance. Designing appropriate monitoring networks and making sensible choices of the various monitoring options is a non-trivial task, and will thus form the core part of this training week.

Participants will engage in an intensive five-day program, combining theoretical foundations with hands-on applications. The curriculum includes two days of topic-specific training, covering advanced geophysical monitoring strategies, followed by a networking day with alumni, industry experts, and student presentations (oral and poster). A field visit will provide insights into real-world geothermal research projects and operations, while soft skills training will prepare students for interdisciplinary collaboration in the field.

By integrating geophysical monitoring with broader aspects of geothermal reservoir characterization, energy storage, surface infrastructure, and shallow geothermal applications, this summer school aims to equip participants with the skills needed to contribute to the future of sustainable geothermal energy.

More info: https://idealeague.org/geophysicalmonitoringingeothermalsystems_2025/

ETH Zurich, Switzerland

tbd

There are no registration and accommodation fees. Students from IDEA League member universities selected to participate in a summer school only have to pay for their own travel costs where applicable.

Priority will be given to PhD students from the IDEA League and ENHANCE Network universities; however, we always have seats for advanced MSc students, students from other universities, or at similar levels in industry.

In order to apply you need to login to SiROP with your university account. When your email belongs to a partner university the affiliation is created automatically.

After successful affiliation you can return to this event and you will find a button "Apply" right at the top.

If you need to affiliate manually please see: http://bit.ly/sirop-affiliate

See above.

For more information please read the FAQ:

https://idealeague.org/students/summerschools/

If you have any further questions regarding the application process, please contact the organizer office@idealeague.org.

Friday, 25 April 2025 at 14:00 (CET)

21 – 25 July 2025

A structured decision-aiding process is crucial for achieving organizational goals and driving societal progress. Complex decision problems arise from conflicting factors, interrelated subsystems, and externalities, demanding solutions that integrate knowledge from various disciplines. In the context of Decision Aiding, single-criterion approaches are often insufficient, as they neglect important aspects of multifaceted problems. Multicriteria approaches, by contrast, enable comprehensive solutions by considering various perspectives. These tools are particularly effective in areas such as:

– urban regeneration economics – sustainable communities and social inclusion
– urban resilience and environmental management
– climate change mitigation
– energy efficiency, supply chain management, and more.

These methodologies provide decision-makers with a bridge between understanding complex problems and implementing effective strategies.

More information: https://idealeague.org/empoweringdecision-aidingevaluationapproachestocomplexity_2025/

Lecco campus or Mantova, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

tbd

There are no registration and accommodation fees. Students from IDEA League member universities selected to participate in a summer school only have to pay for their own travel costs where applicable.

Application is open to Master and PhD Students of the member universities of the IDEA League Alliance http://idealeague.org :

• Chalmers University of Technology
• ETH Zürich
• Politecnico di Milano
• RWTH Aachen
• TU Delft

In order to apply you need to login to SiROP with your university account. When your email belongs to a partner university the affiliation is created automatically.

After successful affiliation you can return to this event and you will find a button "Apply" right at the top.

If you need to affiliate manually please see: http://bit.ly/sirop-affiliate

More information: https://idealeague.org/empoweringdecision-aidingevaluationapproachestocomplexity_2025/

For more information please read the FAQ:

https://idealeague.org/students/summerschools/

If you have any further questions regarding the application process, please contact the organizer office@idealeague.org.

Friday, 11 April 2025 at 14:00 (CET)

8 – 13 June 2025

One of the main strategies to achieve sustainable, green production is a circular economy. To close material life cycles, the EU is currently passing multiple legislations that regulate reparability, recycling quotas, and digital product passes for a range of products. Substantial financial and ecological potential lies in remanufacturing of components and materials. Design for Disassembly (DfD) is a useful tool in this context and an emerging field of research. Moreover, the implementation of automated disassembly systems will enhance conventional manual systems and enable a wider range of strategies, such as remanufacturing, to scale it into a profitable business case.

This summer school will use the disassembly and redesign of drones to demonstrate the power of the circular economy by showcasing how materials and components can be redesigned in a more circular product. Participants will gain hands-on experience in sustainable design principles and innovative engineering approaches that minimize waste and maximize resource efficiency. Through workshops, collaborative projects, and expert-led discussions, attendees will explore the economic, environmental, and technological benefits of circularity in product development.

More information: https://idealeague.org/redesignfordisassemblyandcircular_economy-2025/

Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

tbd

There are no registration and accommodation fees. Students from IDEA League member universities selected to participate in a summer school only have to pay for their own travel costs where applicable.

Application is open to Master and PhD Students of the member universities of the IDEA League Alliance http://idealeague.org :

• Chalmers University of Technology
• ETH Zürich
• Politecnico di Milano
• RWTH Aachen
• TU Delft

In order to apply you need to login to SiROP with your university account. When your email belongs to a partner university the affiliation is created automatically.

After successful affiliation you can return to this event and you will find a button "Apply" right at the top.

If you need to affiliate manually please see: http://bit.ly/sirop-affiliate

See above.

For more information please read the FAQ:

https://idealeague.org/students/summerschools/

If you have any further questions regarding the application process, please contact the organizer office@idealeague.org.

Friday, 25 April 2025 at 14:00 (CET)

25 – 29 August 2025

Electric public transport grids (or traction grids) are historically oversized and underutilized infrastructures. This offers great potential for serving third-party loads, such as EV chargers, at a fraction of the costs and grid updates required. However, this multi-functional use of the traction grids is not only an opportunity, but rather a necessity for the techno-economic feasibility of any renewable energy system connected to it. This is because, unlike any other grid, traction grids have users that are constantly moving, unpredictable (traffic delays), and quickly switch from being a consumer to being a producer of electric power (regenerating braking energy). This landscape proves also to be challenging for the proper placement, sizing, and control of any storage system and introduces some new functionalities for energy storage while making other ones redundant or infeasible.

More information: https://idealeague.org/electrictransportgridsasmulti-functionalandsustainableurbaninfrastructures_2025/

TU Delft, the Netherlands

tbd

There are no registration and accommodation fees. Students from IDEA League member universities selected to participate in a summer school only have to pay for their own travel costs where applicable.

Application is open to Master and PhD Students of the member universities of the IDEA League Alliance http://idealeague.org :

• Chalmers University of Technology
• ETH Zürich
• Politecnico di Milano
• RWTH Aachen
• TU Delft

In order to apply you need to login to SiROP with your university account. When your email belongs to a partner university the affiliation is created automatically.

After successful affiliation you can return to this event and you will find a button "Apply" right at the top.

If you need to affiliate manually please see: http://bit.ly/sirop-affiliate

See above.

For more information please read the FAQ:

https://idealeague.org/students/summerschools/

If you have any further questions regarding the application process, please contact the organizer office@idealeague.org.

Friday, 25 April 2025 at 14:00 (CET)

17 – 22 August 2025

Road crashes are a global concern: the World Health Organization estimates that approximately 1.3 million road fatalities occur worldwide every year—and road crashes are currently the leading cause of death for people aged 5–29 years. Further, unprotected road users (e.g., pedestrians and cyclists) are overrepresented in crash statistics. The current situation calls for more research investigating road-user behaviour, to support the design of active safety systems and driving automation systems that may help improve safety. With the aim to enhance knowledge on this topic, on successful completion of this school, graduates should be able to:

• Explain the importance of analysing and modelling road-user behaviour to improve road safety.
• Illustrate different approaches to modelling road-user behaviour for system development.
• Compute relevant quantitative and qualitative metrics in order to analyse and model road-user behaviour.
• Identify and experience the challenges in the analysis of real-traffic data from naturalistic studies.
• Compare the currently available tools for the virtual evaluation of active safety systems.

More information: https://idealeague.org/analysis-and-modelling-road-user-behavior-2025/

Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

tbd

There are no registration and accommodation fees. Students from IDEA League member universities selected to participate in a summer school only have to pay for their own travel costs where applicable.

Application is open to Master and PhD Students of the member universities of the IDEA League Alliance http://idealeague.org :

• Chalmers University of Technology
• ETH Zürich
• Politecnico di Milano
• RWTH Aachen
• TU Delft

In order to apply you need to login to SiROP with your university account. When your email belongs to a partner university the affiliation is created automatically.

After successful affiliation you can return to this event and you will find a button "Apply" right at the top.

If you need to affiliate manually please see: http://bit.ly/sirop-affiliate

See above.

For more information please read the FAQ:

https://idealeague.org/students/summerschools/

If you have any further questions regarding the application process, please contact the organizer office@idealeague.org.

Friday, 25 April 2025 at 14:00 (CET)

17 - 22 August 2025

Data-driven decision-making is becoming a crucial skill in dealing with engineering systems that generate vast amounts of data from the automation system. Data science is improving our understanding of complex phenomena even faster than physical models have done in the past. Engineering Systems are composed of many complex elements, and their mutual interaction is not trivial to evaluate and predict by adopting the conventional first principles physics-based models.

This course will exploit advanced statistical techniques to build models directly based on the large amount of historical data collected by the recently advanced automation systems without prior knowledge of the underlying physical system. The course will focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Data-driven models (DDMs) for engineering applications, including linear and non- linear models, shallow and deep models, and the best practices for model selection and error estimation. Numerical examples and real-life problems will be proposed and analysed, from bearings fault prediction, to fuel consumption optimisation. All course material will be freely available in PDF format for a complete understanding of the related subjects as well as for future consultation. During the afternoon session, hands-on workshops will be delivered with numerical examples focused on various aspects of AI, ML, and DDMs.

The course is designed for students interested in data analysis with an engineering background, numerical skills, and a rudimentary understanding of statistics. This course covers methodologies necessary for inferring useful information and identifying underlying patterns from raw, incomplete, noisy, and corrupted data that is present in real-life engineering applications. This is achieved by introducing concepts and methods used to model a wide range of systems based on available data.

More information: https://idealeague.org/artificial-intelligence-for-engineering-applications-2025/

TU Delft, the Netherlands

tbd

There are no registration and accommodation fees. Students from IDEA League member universities selected to participate in a summer school only have to pay for their own travel costs where applicable.

Application is open to Master and PhD Students of the member universities of the IDEA League Alliance http://idealeague.org :

• Chalmers University of Technology
• ETH Zürich
• Politecnico di Milano
• RWTH Aachen
• TU Delft

In order to apply you need to login to SiROP with your university account. When your email belongs to a partner university the affiliation is created automatically.

After successful affiliation you can return to this event and you will find a button "Apply" right at the top.

If you need to affiliate manually please see: http://bit.ly/sirop-affiliate

More information: https://idealeague.org/artificial-intelligence-for-engineering-applications-2025/

For more information please read the FAQ:

https://idealeague.org/students/summerschools/

If you have any further questions regarding the application process, please contact the organizer office@idealeague.org.

Friday, 25 April 2025 at 14:00 (CET)

25 – 29 August 2025

Homelessness reflects deeper structural inequalities in society. With homelessness rising across the EU and targets set EU-wide to eliminate homelessness by 2030, there is also growing awareness of the need for comprehensive solutions that address the root causes of homelessness, such as economic inequality, housing shortages, and inadequate social services. This summer course on homelessness offers an interdisciplinary exploration of urban spaces, focusing on the experiences and challenges faced by marginalized social groups from a critical perspective. Through interdisciplinary inputs, group work, and creative formats, participants will engage with complex issues surrounding homelessness and urban space. Each day will focus on specific spatial and intersectional dimensions of homelessness, led by academics from fields such as human geography, urban planning, and a variety of practitioners. We integrate theoretical and practical knowledge, with discussions on urban policy, public space, and the lived experiences of marginalized groups. The multi-faceted program engages students to critically reflect on homelessness as a spatial issue shaped by societal, political, and economic forces, and fosters both theoretical understanding and practical insights for future research and action.

More information: https://idealeague.org/spacesofhomelessness_2025/

RWTH Aachen, Germany

tbd

There are no registration and accommodation fees. Students from IDEA League member universities selected to participate in a summer school only have to pay for their own travel costs where applicable.

Application is open to Master and PhD Students of the member universities of the IDEA League Alliance http://idealeague.org :

• Chalmers University of Technology
• ETH Zürich
• Politecnico di Milano
• RWTH Aachen
• TU Delft

In order to apply you need to login to SiROP with your university account. When your email belongs to a partner university the affiliation is created automatically.

After successful affiliation you can return to this event and you will find a button "Apply" right at the top.

If you need to affiliate manually please see: http://bit.ly/sirop-affiliate

See above.

For more information please read the FAQ:

https://idealeague.org/students/summerschools/

If you have any further questions regarding the application process, please contact the organizer office@idealeague.org.