Call for Projects 2025

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 from 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 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.

The project must support one of the following two measures:

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

• Bring new imaging algorithms and methods to 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 the 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. 

Application procedure.

Project proposals are submitted by PIs assuming that the proposed work will be performed by already-recruited or to-be-recruited researchers. Maximum length of the proposal is three (3) pages including budget and references. The proposals should address the following:

• Project information: PI(s), duration of the project, desired start date, researcher to be hired (if known)
• Imaging problem: importance, timeliness, challenges
• Summary of the proposed work (research objectives, methodology)
• How does the proposed work extend the state-of-the-art?
• Interdisciplinarity of the project: what kind of synergies are created by the joint work of the researcher from different fields; how they will practically collaborate
• Which measure and its targeted outcomes does the project address?
• Concrete project outcomes in line with the addressed measure targeted outcomes
• Brief schedule and plan of the proposed work implementation
• Project budget (template for budget estimation is available here) 

Proposals must be submitted in PDF format by email to imaging [at] tuni.fi (imaging[at]tuni[dot]fi) with the subject line [TAU Imaging  Call for Projects 2025]. Closing date for applications is 30.11.2024 (anywhere on Earth). Proposals must be written in English.

For any further information, please contact imaging [at] tuni.fi (imaging[at]tuni[dot]fi)