VoCS: The Voice Communication Science
Exploring how voice shapes cognition, perception, and interaction across human and artificial communication.
The Voice Communication Sciences (VoCS) project is a doctoral network of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (GA 101168998)
VoCS is a European Doctoral Network advancing the science of voice communication across human and artificial contexts.
Across Europe, 19 Doctoral Candidates are developing interdisciplinary research projects at the intersection of cognitive sciences, acoustics, phonetics, and computing science.
Together, their work explores how voices are produced, perceived, processed, and used to shape communication, interaction, and social connection.
Methodological training, hands-on research and professional placements.
The programme combines advanced methodological training with hands-on research and intersectoral placements. Initial activities include onboarding new participants, literature reviews and rotations in local laboratories. From 2026 onwards, 19 research centres will carry out coordinated experiments and temporary stays at partner institutions, while shared datasets and open resources will be published throughout the process.
Discover our project
Doctoral Candidates
Nineteen doctoral students have taken up positions at universities, research institutes, and partner companies in 12 countries. Over the next four years, they will investigate how humans perceive and produce voice, and how this knowledge can drive safer, fairer, and more natural voice technologies.
Here are the 19 PhD projects:
Tianze Xu
Marin Schröer
Zhuoqing Li
Erdem Baha Topbas
Dorottya Szilvia Rácz
Mujtaba Hussain Razvi Syed
Rong Li
Beatrice Fumagalli
Sojeong Kwon
Kateryna Skupovska
Cornelia Veronika Pachner
Diego Belfiore
Ibrahim Vefa Arslan
Grace Carrier
Lelia Erscoi
Gard Beinnes
Xuehua Fu
Sophie Möller
Xiaowen Luo
The Training
VoCS Winter School: the starting point of doctoral training.
Current Methods in Voice Communication Sciences
9–12 February 2026 · Herzberg Seminar House & Conference Center (Switzerland)
Host institution: University of Zurich
The Consortium
With the participation of 22 Universities from Acroos Europe.
This is the list of Universities included in the Consortium
Aix-Marseille Université
Maastricht University
Université Jean Monnet
Universidad Pompeu Fabra
University of Eastern Finland
University of Twente
audEERING
University of Zürich
Oxford Wave Research
National Bureau of Investigation
Oticon Medical
Friedrich Schiller University Jena
University of Oslo
Eötvös Loránd University
Charles University
University College London
Queen Mary University
Eriksholm
Technical University Münich
National Institute of Informatics
Odia
University Medical Center Groningen
Contact Us
About VOCS ©2024 The project has been funded by the European Union under GA 101168998. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only do not necessariyl reflect those of the European Union nor the European Reserch Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be hed responsible for them.