Successful outcomes of ITN STRIKE

In Dec 2016 the European Initial Training Network project “STRIKE – Novel Methods in Computational Finance” did end. The Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Germany, coordinated this project that involved a network of eleven universities for training twelve PhD-students (4 females, 8 males) and five PostDocs (2 females, 3 males).
The project initiated the ECMI Special Interest Group (SIG) on Computational Finance. For ECMI the Fellows did report at ECMI-2014 (Taormina) and at ECMI-2016 (Santiago) in sessions of the SIG.
End of 2017 eight PhD-Students, including our four female ones, already had successfully defended their Theses. A ninth Thesis has been submitted, three others are scheduled for the first half of 2018.
Zuzana Buckova Zikova even achieved a cotutelle result in March 2017: she did defend her Thesis both at BU Wuppertal and at the Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia.
All former PhD-students and PostDocs easily found new positions at universities, research institutes and at companies and banks.
Outcomes of the STRIKE project have been collected in:
M. Ehrhardt, M. Günther, E.J.W. ter Maten (Eds) – Novel Methods in Computational Finance, Series Mathematics in Industry 25, Springer, 2017, http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319612812.
It includes contributions by private sector partners of the project as well.
For further publications we refer to http://www.itn-strike.eu/.

One ESR made the following citation:
The highlights of the STRIKE network are several. STRIKE is a serious boost to 17 young people – 12 ESRs and 5 ERs – in their professional development in computational finance.
These researchers work extensively together with their supervisors and professionals from the associated partners in order to get results of high importance to industry (novel models, novel numerical algorithms and theoretical results).
Further, last but not least important, STRIKE strengthens seriously the interaction and transfer of knowledge of methods and algorithms between all parties involved in the consortium. This is going to produce very good results in the long term as collaboration and team work is a recipe for success.
STRIKE is a big boost in their professional career of ESRs and ERs who are in the focus of the project.
STRIKE may provide financial assistance in the several remaining months through mobilization of all resources in order to support the researchers in completing their tasks, in completing some courses (or industry experience) which are essential for a professional in computational finance and further in finding a position in the academy or industry.

We thank all supervisors from Bergische Univ. Wuppertal (Germany), Comenius Univ. Bratislava (Slovakia), Polytechnical Univ. Valencia (Spain), Ruse/Rousse Univ. (Bulgaria), ISEG/Univ. Lisbon (Portugal), Univ. of Applied Sciences Zittau (Germany), TU Vienna (Austria), TU Delft (the Netherlands), Univ. of Greenwich (London, UK), Univ. Würzburg (Germany) and the Univ. Antwerp (Belgium) for their excellent work done during the project. Here BU Wuppertal and TU Delft are ECMI Members.