Features and objectives

The PhD Course aims at training highly qualified PhD students in the field of chemistry, offering Italian and foreign graduates the opportunity to independently develop an original and innovative research project in the most advanced sectors of chemical sciences and technologies. To this end, PhD students will be trained, within the framework of the different topics offered by the Course, through constant experimental and/or theoretical research activities supported by an appropriate teaching programme. PhD student(s) will acquire the scientific method, develop a keen critical mind, and acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to carry out high-level research activities in a variety of interdisciplinary fields of interest in chemistry, both nationally and internationally. 

The centrality of the chemical sciences is widely recognised and cuts across several scientific disciplines (physics, biology, engineering, geology, pharmacy, archaeology) and thus finds applications in fields that are also very different from each other, from materials science to biomedicine, from energy to agriculture, from electronics to biology, from conservation of cultural heritage to environmental protection. The research activity will in fact be flanked by specific advanced teachings, as well as transversal teachings aimed at training PhD students in all those soft-skills that are fundamental for dissemination, both in oral and written form, as well as aspects related to research and acquisition of funding and technology transfer. This training will enable PhD students to consolidate their basic knowledge and to progress through high-level specialised training. The skills acquired during the PhD Course will enable them to make an effective contribution to the advancement of the chemical sciences both in the industrial world, by taking up highly professional positions, and in the academic world, in a context of global international competition. To achieve this goal, PhD students are given the opportunity to come into contact with researchers and research institutions both at home and abroad. 

The PhD Course pursues mobility and internationalisation objectives, both incoming and outgoing, promoting the exchange of lecturers and PhD students with other Italian and foreign, public and private institutions. In particular, all doctoral students are offered the opportunity to carry out a period of activity at highly qualified foreign research institutions, to come into contact with the world of industry and, possibly, to obtain multiple or joint degrees in agreement with other universities. Furthermore, the PhD Course ensures that the research carried out generates products directly attributable to the PhD student (individually or in collaboration) and that these products are adequately made accessible, according to the open-source paradigm, in compliance with the mechanisms of intellectual protection of research products, where applicable, and offers all doctoral students the opportunity to attend seminars and training schools, also promoting their participation in national and international conferences.

The experience of the Faculty has shown that an excessively rigid scheduling of teaching and all the other activities is ill-suited to a cutting-edge and constantly evolving research activity. For this reason, the Course proposes the attendance of transversal lectures preferably during the first year, precisely because the topics covered represent the foundation of many of the subsequent activities, while it chooses to leave flexibility to the PhD student to propose to the Faculty, in agreement with his/her supervisor, a customised calendar for the attendance of specialised lectures that the Course offers indiscriminately, on an annual basis, in all three years. This flexibility makes it possible to automatically adapt the courses on offer to the real needs of the PhD student and his/her specific research project. The same approach is also applied to periods spent off-site and for attending doctoral schools for PhD students, or attending conferences.