Development of the short-term integrated program of education of materials science and human skills training -Case study of Professional development Consortium for Computational Materials Scientists in Japan-

We develop PCoMS Innovative Professional Development program and support the graduate students and young researchers in materials science (MS) to overcome the gaps among fundamental researches, application researches and practical applications. Onsite PCoMS 3day seminar is one of unique subjects in our program to learn the following 3 categories at once; wide knowledge of computational materials science (CMS), high-performance computing techniques, and human skills and transferable skills (HSTS) needed for researchers in both industry and academia. In this seminar, we integrate “scientific lectures” with “HSTS trainings and group discussion”.

We held this seminar 4 times before COVID-19. Based on a participants’ questionnaire, we found that satisfaction of participants is high, though they think that group discussion is a tough task and some of them did not recognize the importance of HSTS before attending the seminar. This seminar is effective for the participants getting new perspectives, broadening their scientific knowledge of MS and improving their HTSs.

We are now developing the online and/or hybrid seminar with/post COVID-19.