In 2024, 4TU+.AMI financed a new SRI on Model Reduction for Industrial Applications. The main goal is to strengthen collaborative research and training on model reduction among the five AMI partner institutes, other Dutch universities and potential industry partners. The SRI has almost six months until completion and we thought this is a good moment to reflect on the past year and share their goals for the future. In this interview, Shobhit Jain (TU Delft) shares his experiences from leading this SRI.
The idea to form an SRI started during the AMI Community Event in 2023. People were giving pitches on their research and some of us realized we were working on topics related to model reduction, but we didn’t know each other yet. Hence, we decided to form an SRI and start building a community around this topic. For me, this was a great opportunity to build collaborations in the Netherlands, since I had just joined TU Delft.
During the first year of the SRI, we invested quite some time in understanding each other’s research and in investigating possible research collaborations. Our first major step as an SRI was a 3-part minisymposium on Model Reduction that I organized at the 9th European Congress on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences and Engineering (ECCOMAS) in Portugal. This minisymposium connected the Dutch model reduction community with its international counterpart, and gave us a lot of energy to pursue further collaborations. Similarly last May, our SRI colleague, Silke Glas, organized a 2-part invited session on model reduction for coupled systems at the Conference on Coupled Problems in Science and Engineering (COUPLED 2025).
Building a research community on model reduction is our main goal. But we also find it very important to educate young researchers. The physical processes of interest to contemporary science and engineering are growing ever more complex and we believe that model reduction will grow in the future. This motivated us to transition the latest model reduction research into education and practice. In June 2024, I organized a one-day seminar at the TU Delft for master students and PhD candidates. Our SRI researchers, Xiaodong Cheng and Stephan Trenn, presented their work and there was also a very dynamic poster session where master students presented results from their own projects.
Another important goal of our SRI is to explore industrial research opportunities. Model reduction methods are often application specific and diverse industrial applications motivate new theoretical and computational developments. Last summer, we organized a workshop where experts from ASML, Deltares, Royal IHC and VORtech joined for an engaging day of research exchange in Utrecht. This workshop also gave us the chance to discuss various collaboration opportunities and has already resulted in a joint master project proposal with VORtech and Deltares about reduced-order modelling of flow around offshore wind turbines.
By organizing ourselves in an SRI, it is much easier to engage with industrial partners and to start joint projects. Going forward in 2026, we are planning to organize a Summer/Fall School for PhD candidates and researchers to improve the accessibility of cutting edge research in model reduction for industrial applications. Furthermore, we look forward to keep investing in the research and industrial collaborations we have initiated in the past year!
About this SRI
The team currently consists of Silke Glas (UT), Shobhit Jain and Alexander Heinlein (TU Delft), Xiaodong Cheng (WUR) and Stephan Trenn (RUG). At the moment, their team has an opening for a partner researcher from TU Eindhoven since Cecilia Pagliantini found a new position outside the Netherlands. If you are interested in joining this SRI, please contact Shobhit Jain (TU Delft) or Silke Glas (UT).