Overview
The European Master in Agricultural, Food and Environmental Policy Analysis aims at providing a high quality education in designing and assessing public policies targeted to the agricultural and food sector as well as the rural environment. This European Master responds to the increasing need to better understand and anticipate the various and often complex socio-economic and environmental effects of these policies either in a functioning market economy as in the European Uni0n or in economies in a development or transition phase. The European Master offers a two-year academic curriculum with integrated and advanced theoretical, methodological and empirical courses in economics and quantitative methods as well as in agricultural, food and environmental sciences, agricultural and trade policy, environmental and natural resource policy, rural development policy and agribusiness management and market analysis. To connect theory and methodology to practice, a problem solving project is developed and presented as a master thesis at the end of the two-year curriculum.

The Expertise centre for Digital Media is a research institute of Hasselt University in Belgium. The research team of about 80 people performs scientific research in 3 areas: computer graphics, human-computer interaction and multimedia & communication technology. Hasselt University calls for candidates for the following vacant position (m/f) in EDM:

PhD Scholarship in computer science (2 x 2 jaar)

Scholarship description:
The intended research is situated in the domains of networked virtual environments (NVE) and human-computer interaction (HCI). More specifically, synchronization in scalable networked virtual environments is studied, supporting simulation-based interaction. The investigated synchronization techniques enhance consistency of the status of the virtual environment as presented to all users. Heterogeneous environments (different platforms, I/O devices etc.) are taken into account. Besides synchronization techniques, interaction techniques and the flexibility in their realization play an important role in the envisioned research. Usable multimodal interaction metaphors are designed for individuals as well as groups of users. A division of the users in subgroups is considered for both simulation and interaction between several users in order to enhance performance and social interaction. Further details of the PhD research topics will be determined based on the background and interest of the PhD candidate.