SUMA – Master in Sustainable Materials

Are you a student who is:

• Interested in earth sciences, mining, materials sciences, and engineering?
• Motivated to explore the connection between materials technology and its environmental and socio-economic factors?
• Keen to become entrepreneurial and start your own company?
• Motivated to work closely with industry and research on cutting-edge challenges?

As an EIT-Labelled master‘s program, SUMA recognizes the importance of providing students with the opportunity to explore the economic relevance of sustainable materials solutions and how they are practically implemented in industrial and societal settings. SUMA students will be provided with innovation and entrepreneurship training addressing the following:

• Courses dealing with the implementation of an innovation strategy at a company level and the management of the product development process and strategic management, creativity, and decision-making for product development
• Business simulation games
• Testimonies were given by young entrepreneurs on the role of engineering in the start-up of technological spin-off companies
• Case studies presented by industrial and company experts in the field
• Small group and individual project work addressing real-world problems

One-week Summer School

Every year the SUMA master‘s programs organize a summer school where all students from different tracks come together to learn from leading experts on a particular sustainable materials topic. During the summer school, students will work together in teams on societal and technological challenges, using the knowledge and lecture content from the expert summer school faculty. The 2019 SUMA summer school supported the SUMA master students in developing competencies in the field of entrepreneurship. The courses and activities were focused on methods and tools to guide the process of start-up creation. Theoretical approaches for new business creation were presented and students were invited to develop and pitch ideas related to start-up creation.

Atlantic Copper Chair Activities (ACCHAIR)

In 2021, ACCHAIR, supported by Atlantic Copper, the leading Spanish copper producer, in collaboration with the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), will organize 15 conferences taught by international experts in extractive and recycling metallurgy, emphasizing the most recent scientific and technological innovations of these fields. All the ACCHAIR conferences will be live-streamed to students from all the universities of the SUMA consortium.

Additionally, ACCHAIR will organize a summer school open to all SUMA students. The course will last one week with three days of classes at the UPM and three days of visits to mining projects and metallurgical plants in the Spanish pyrite belt. The ACCHAIR summer school takes place each year in July.

Program Structure

The Sustainable Materials (SUMA) master’s programs are two-year programs embedded in the engineering programs of the participating universities. There are in total 9 tracks, each of which has been awarded the EIT Label. Each track of the SUMA program consists of one full year at an entry university, followed by a second year at one of the other participating universities.

The SUMA master‘s program aims at training scientists with a solid background in chemistry and physics, with competencies in designing and tailoring new material systems for specific functions, and with a specific view to the sustainability of processes and technologies in the field of material development. The main job opportunities are in industries and research centers in Europe, working on the development and production of functional materials for advanced applications and high technology. Graduates can start a career as highly valued future leaders in positions of responsibility in managing advanced material design, production processes, and material qualifying protocols in high-tech firms, material diagnostics and analysis in industries and research centers, and material development projects and scientific research projects in the field of material science and technology innovation.

Sustainable Material Solutions with SUMA

The SUMA master‘s program aims to train tomorrow’s resource engineers in collaborative work in a global world, gathering together some of the best educational programs in the field of sustainable materials engineering in Europe. The goal is to ensure young scientists obtain a solid background in chemistry and physics, with competencies for designing and tailoring new material systems for specific functions, and with a specific view to the sustainability of processes and technologies in the field of material development. SUMA puts a particularly strong focus on innovation, entrepreneurship, and leadership and takes a holistic approach to the materials paradigm by exploring circular (eco) design, materials substitution, life cycle engineering, and circular economy design, materials processing and recycling, manufacturing, and innovation.