CoSP supported research visits of 52 scientists
The Combinatorial Structures and Processes (CoSP) project supported research secondments of 52 scientists at prestigious universities in the US and Canada. These included Rutgers University, Princeton University, Simon Fraser University and the University of California, Berkeley. Scientists from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics (MFF UK) and its partner institutions, the French Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and the Israel‘s Technion, spent a total of 143.5 months across the Atlantic Ocean.
Final project meeting in Lyon
The scientists fulfilled the project's scientific programme. They studied, in particular, the relationship of matroids and problems on the colourings of graphs and hypergraphs, the algorithmic complexity around edit distance problems, the average case complexity, also using Statistical Physics methods, and the problems related to the Ramsey theory. Important is the overlap of the performed research into the Algorithmic Game Theory, which reflects the latest trend in the development of the Discrete Mathematics. The project was implemented thanks to an exchange grant from the European Union from Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions coordinated by Martin Loebl of MFF UK.
All categories of scientists – from professors to promising young scientists – travelled to the research secondments. For the young scientists, CoSP offered an invaluable experience of one of the first research stayes abroad, magnified by collaborating with respected scientists from the USA and Canada. Thanks to CoSP they gained invaluable soft skills. From 2019 to 2024, CoSP supported the implementation of the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Programme at Dimacs, Rutgers University. A student said after the secondment: „REU was a tremendous experience for me. I tried what mathematical research really looks like for the first time in my life. For two months I spent many hours every day intensively thinking about the same problem. REU supported my interest in research and I would like to devote more time to it in the future. … Thanks to REU I collaborated on an article that was published. The first publication in my life!“
For senior scientists, the CoSP offered opportunities for collaboration and intensive work on scientific problems. Prof. Michal Koucky (Charles University) says: „My repeated visits to Rutgers allowed me to collaborate with Mike Saks and others. This collaboration has led to several excellent results.“
Ron Holzman from Technion appreciates CoSP project, too: „My 12-month long secondment at Princeton University was a wonderful opportunity to be exposed to the first-class mathematical research performed by members of the department there and a strong flow of visitors. Personally, it enabled me to renew my collaboration with Professor Noga Alon and launch a fruitful new collaboration with mathematicians from Carnegie Mellon University following a short visit there.“ Dr. Nicolas Trotignon (CNRS) had a similar experience: „My CoSP secondment in Princeton (January 2024 – March 2024) was a great opportunity to collaborate with Pr. Maria Chudnovsky, Pr. Paul Seymour and Tung Nguyen (PhD student). It lead to several joint works, some of which still in progress. Also the CoSP workshops were the occasion to learn a lot from the other members of CoSP and to start new projects.“
prof. RNDr. Martin Loebl, CSc.
