Once I heard the news about the research grant that I obtained, the first thing that I really wanted to do was to create a website for the project. This way I can communicate the purpose and results of the project to the broad audience and try to make research open and more inclusive.
Today I can finally say that I have the first version of the website ready! You can visit it here.
About a year ago (to be more precise, a year and 3 months ago), I applied for a grant at the UEFISCDI research agency. The initial plan was to have the results by May 2017 and start working on the projects sometime during the summer. Long story short, we had quite some delays, receiving news about the ranking only a few weeks ago.
Last week, we got the final answer, and the news were good: The government had allocated the budget for the projects for this year and our proposal was among the funded ones!
The first meetup for ‘Research in Cluj’ has just happened, and it was fully of enthusiastic people and very interesting discussions. Out of 13 people that RSVPed they will join, 12 actually showed up, which is a very encouraging number for such a kind of meeting.
We got to know each other, presented our backround, shared our experiences and current occupation and frustrations in the research system. And eventually we created a plan for the future meetups and their format.
Since we moved in Cluj last year, I’ve been trying to get more active in research. It is a bit difficult without a research grant, and steps have been slow, but it’s going somewhere. All this time, I had the impression that research in Cluj is rather dead, but I am constantly discovering here and there initiatives and people doing serious research. Since one disabling factor for not being able to perform research is the fact that I don’t know other researchers here, I decided to do something about it :)
About a year and a half ago, I started working at the Robotics group at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca. The goal was (and still is) to develop a robotic rehabilitation framework, using biomechanics in the loop, to be used with post-stroke patients. Today, I finally started getting my hands dirty (still waiting for funding for the project) and things are moving.
Literally :)
One of the ideas for the project is to use the Cyton Gamma 1500 that is available at our lab, and I am starting to learn how to use it.