Edinburgh Speech Science and Technology

Overview

● What are Early Stage Training Programmes?● EdSST – the state of play

Overview of EdSST

● Four-year EU Marie Curie Early Stage Training programme that offers exceptional funding for exceptional researchers

● Five long-term fellows, five short-term fellows ● Collaboration between University of Edinburgh

(lead partner) and Queen Margaret University College

Marie Curie Early Stage Training

● Aims to

– stimulate European Mobility

– foster cooperation between partners in consortium of

host institutions

– encourage young researchers to pursue research

projects in another country● Provides exceptional funding for exceptional

researchers

Who can be a Fellow?

● Postgraduate researchers

– with less than four years research experience (industry

experience does not count)

– who do not already hold a PhD

– who have been living in the host country for less than 12

out of the past 36

● Citizens of the host country can only apply if they have been

living abroad for more than 48 of the past 60 months

● There is a quota on non-EU students

What do Fellows Get?

● Monetary

– monthly living allowance (fixed depending on country)

– travel allowance (fixed)

– PhDs get career development allowance

● Training and Supervision

Overview

● What are Early Stage Training Programmes?● EdSST – the state of play

Edinburgh Speech Science and Technology

● 5 Long-Term Fellows (36 months, PhD at Edinburgh or QMUC)

and 5 Short-Term Fellows (average stay of 6 months)

● Research Focus:

– Articulatory instrumentation and modelling

– Speech synthesis

– Speech recognition

– Spoken Dialogue Systems

– Inclusive Design

– Augmentative and Alternative Communication

Care and Nurturing of the Common Fellow

● Each fellow has two supervisors, one from QMUC and one from Edinburgh, and a mentor for pastoral care

● Fellows have two detailed personal plans that are reviewed periodically covering

– research project

– career and skills development

Who are our Long-Term Fellows?

● Edinburgh:– Sebastian Andersson, Naturalness in Speech Synthesis

– Joao Cabral, Expressive Speech Synthesis

– Martin Tietze, Spoken Dialogue Systems for Older People

– Dong Wang, Speech Recognition

● QMUC:– Tanja Kocjancic, Ultrasound of dyspraxic speech

Next Step: Short-Term Fellows

● Two calls, one in October 2006 and one in October 2007

● will conduct well-defined research project at CSTR and/or SSRC

● 4-12 months duration● 3-7 Fellows● Flyer for distribution

Project Timeline

● Start: January 1, 2006● Call for Long-Term Fellows: January 2006,

closed March 31, 2006 for start in September 2007

● Calls for Short-Term Fellows in late 2006 and 2007

● End: December 31, 2009

EdSST events

● Yearly workshops with presentations by fellows and guest speakers

● Weekly research seminars where students

– discuss their progress

– give talks

– present end-of-project reports