INRiM is one of the key partners in the new European doctoral programme QuRIOUS – Quantum Research and Innovation in Optical clocks for Upcoming Scientists, a doctoral network funded by the European Commission under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – Doctoral Networks.
The programme, coordinated by the University of Amsterdam, aims to train 15 doctoral students on the topic of optical clocks and their applications— devices that today represent the state of the art in time measurement, thanks to their unprecedented precision, reaching accuracies of one part in a quintillion.
The new doctoral students will be trained at the Universities of Amsterdam, Birmingham, Copenhagen, Toruń, Vienna and Innsbruck, and at the National Center for Scientific Research in France and the INRiM; in close collaboration with the industry partners Menlo Systems (Germany), NKT Photonics (Denmark), and QUBIG (Germany). Eleven further associated partners throughout Europe are also involved in the training network.
QuRIOUS continues several earlier initiatives on optical clocks that were also supported by the European Commission; in particular the MoSaiQC training network that is currently training 16 doctoral students on optical atomic clocks, as well as the iqClock research collaboration and its successor, AQuRA, aimed at making optical quantum clocks ready for use in industry.
INRiM's participation strengthens its strategic role in Europe as a scientific reference point in quantum metrology and in the training of a new generation of highly skilled researchers.