The doctoral fellowship programme, which aims to attract international early-stage researchers to the top Spanish research centres – namely the MINECO-selected Severo Ochoa Centres of Excellence and Maria de Maeztu Units of Excellence, and the Spanish Ministry of Health’s Carlos III Research Institutes – closed its first call in February this year. 

ICMAB'’s success in the INPhINIT programme is an evidence that Materials Science is one of the ‘hot topics’ of today, and proves the effectiveness of the ICMAB's strategy to attract the best talent in this interdisciplinary field, which includes physics, chemistry, bioenginering, nanotechnology, among others.

The lucky talented Research Fellows that will carry out their PhD at ICMAB with a three-year employment contract are: 

• Jan Grzelak, from Poland. Jan will do his PhD under the supervision of Anna ROIG and Martí GICH (NN group), within the project "Mesoporous Magnetic Nanorods for Theranostics".

• Milena Cervo Sulzbach, from Brasil. Milena will do her PhD with Josep FONTCUBERTA (MULFOX group), within the project "Engineering brain-like neurons and synapse with ferroelectrics".

• José Jurado, from the USA. José will carry out his PhD with Mariano CAMPOY-QUILES (NANOPTO group), within the project "Hybrid photovoltaic and thermoelectric (PV/TE) devices based on organic semiconductors"

Some data about the 2016-2017 call:

The programme attracted a total of 438 appllications in the 2016-2017 call, from which 312 were accepted. Out of them, 143 passed the firs preselection process, and after an interview with the candidates and evaluating their CV's and merits, a total of 57 proposals were awarded.

Out of the INPhINIT PhD candidates, 54.4 % are male researchers, and 45.6 %  female. The average age of the fellows is 25.9 years. 

The fellowships awarded are in the following areas:

• Life Sciences: 28
  • Health Sciences: 8
  • Molecular biology and biochemistry: 6
  • Plant Biology, Ecology and Conservation: 5
  • Biomedicine and biotechnology: 4
  • Human Biology: 3
  • Mathematical and computational biology: 2
• Physical Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering: 29
  • Engineering and technology: 7
  • Physical sciences: 14
  • Mathematics and computer science: 4
  • Earth and space sciences: 2
  • Chemical sciences: 2

About INPhINIT:

INPhINIT is a new doctoral fellowship programme devoted to attracting international Early-Stage Researchers to the top Spanish research centres in the areas of Bio and Health Sciences, Physics, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. INPhINIT is promoted by the "la Caixa" Foundation with the aim of supporting the best scientific talent and fostering innovative and high-quality research in Spain by recruiting outstanding international students and offering them an attractive and competitive environment for conducting research of excellence.

INPhINIT recruits per call 57 Early-Stage Researchers of any nationality, who enjoy a 3-year employment contract at the Research Centre of their choice among those selected and awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness ("Severo Ochoa" centres of excellence and "Maria de Maeztu" units of excellence) and the Spanish Ministry of Health ("Carlos III centres of excellence"). In addition, researchers establish a personal career development plan including trasnational, intersectoral and interdisciplinary mobility opportunities, and attend a full range of complementary training courses and workshops.

INPhINIT relies on the European Commission's support through the Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions - COFUND programme to recruit a larger number of researchers and achieve a broader impact, as well as to further pursue the highest standards for research training.