Call for Projects 2022

Imaging is a transdisciplinary discipline of high importance and strong industrial and societal relevance, which has been the focus of excellent fundamental and applied research and education at Tampere University (TAU). It encompasses and bridges the physics of light and other electromagnetic waves, optical materials and structures, sensors transforming light into electrical and digital signals, comprehensive signal processing methods to enable computational image formation, restoration, and automated analysis and interpretation. Our approach to modern imaging is heavily based on new physical principles, sophisticated mathematical models, as well as powerful computing platforms that enable real-time processing of an ever-greater amount of data. 

The profiling activities in the area have been coordinated within the TAU Imaging Research Platform, which has received funding by the Academy of Finland with the following goals:

1. Strengthen imaging as a fundamental and applied research field in TAU

2. Develop a research platform that offers advanced imaging as a service across the university, and to effectively engage all individuals and units that make use of imaging and thus supercharge image-based scientific investigation at TAU

3. Leverage and support existing research infrastructure

4. Develop research-based education and training in imaging to sustain academic excellence and competitiveness of the local imaging industry

In pursuing these goals, we are now looking for projects to be funded by the profiling postdoc budget.

This is the second of a series of project calls under the TAU Imaging Research Platform profiling action during the 2021-2026 period.

The project must support one of the following two measures:

Advanced imaging as cross-disciplinary service for the TAU research community

• Bring new imaging algorithms and methods to the multidisciplinary fields (e.g., biomedical imaging, robotics, material science, and autonomous systems)

• Produce and release software freely available to the academic community for nonprofit research, and ready for licensing to companies for commercial use

• Accelerate the adoption of the state of the art in imaging and assist scientists to stop relying on obsolete imaging and image processing methods

• Increase impact of the results (more impactful science through advanced imaging)

• Create a feedback system that allows methods to be further developed and extended toward ever more challenging imaging conditions.

Research collaboration on “Light Transport”

• Establish collaborative work on “Light Transport” for the development of disruptive imaging methods and technologies in the area which couples advanced photonics components with computational imaging algorithms and efficient computer graphics rendering. More specifically, project can address, e.g.

• Developing a theoretical framework for light transport through complex media

• Development advanced hardware relying on new materials and photonics components

• Computational imaging aspects of light transport in relation with the light perceptibility in terms of computational models of the human visual system describing complex and understudied phenomena such as evoking focus cues and continuous parallax in immersive visualization

• Real-time, low-latency photo-realistic rendering and light field reconstruction

• Advancing imaging systems, which are essential to autonomous driving, high-precision medical imaging, modern consumer displays and cameras, distant hyperspectral imaging and remote sensing

• Make full use of the related infrastructures, e.g., CIVIT, Laboratory of Photonics, and TMC.

The expected target duration of a project is between 6 and 12 months. Longer durations up to 24 months can be considered exceptionally if a project addresses the goals of TAU Imaging Research Platform in a grand way and if a significant added value resulting from the extended duration can be demonstrated in the proposal. Depending on the case, longer projects will be subject to intermediate reviews for providing full-length funding.

Funding is for salaries, and it is primarily targeted to fund postdoctoral researchers, under a part-time or full-time basis. A project budget is thus calculated as the monthly (postdoctoral) researcher salary according to the university salary system multiplied by the project duration (number of person-months). An additional 15% overhead return is provided by the departments to the projects for covering other project-related costs, e.g. materials, services, travel and employing additional personnel, if needed. The 15% is calculated from the amount of total salaries paid from the project.

Collaborative cross-disciplinary projects (e.g. by two PIs in different units) and those involving postdocs will be prioritized. If a PI has a challenging problem and wants to establish collaboration with a PI with core expertise in Imaging, we can provide help in the collaborator search.

Application procedure

Two-page project proposals are submitted by PIs assuming that the proposed work will be performed by already-recruited or to-be-recruited researchers. The proposals should address the following:

• Brief description of the proposed research work

• Which measure and its targeted outcomes does the project address?

• Concrete project outcomes in line with the addressed measure targeted outcomes

• Applied duration and tentative starting date (Projects can start as early as in October 2022 or later depending on the availability of suitable researchers)

• Are the researchers to be employed already available or are still to be identified by an open call?

• Project budget (template available here) 

Proposals must be submitted in PDF format by email to imaging@tuni.fi with the subject line [TAU Imaging  Call for Projects 2022]. Closing date for applications is 15.08.2022 (24:00 EEST / 22:00 UTC). Proposals must be written in English.

For any further information, please contact imaging@tuni.fi