The PhD Programme in Physics involves, besides soft skill courses, more than 20 hard skill courses, related to the topics of the four major areas (experimental physics of matter, theoretical physics of matter, physics of complex systems and high-energy physics) as well as to interdisciplinary topics. Our PhD students are required to attend a minimum of 200 hours of hard skills courses, 40 hours of soft skills courses, and to get their credits by passing the related exams.
In order to strengthen and enhance internationalization, the educational programme of the PhD in Physics is periodically enriched with courses of excellence and courses held by international professors visiting the Department of Applied Science and Technology. PhD students are also strongly encouraged to carry out a research period of a few months at particularly prestigious foreign universities and research centres, such as e.g. the Ecole Normale Supérieure of Lyon (FR), the University of Cambridge (UK ), the University of Dresden (GE), the Molecular Foundry of Berkeley (USA), the University of Eastern Finland (FI), the AMOLF Institute in Amsterdam (NL), CERN (CH).
The programme also fosters interdisciplinarity by requiring the PhD students to get their credits in courses from different major areas and by attending the “Seminar Course”: It consists in a series of seminars about broad interest topics, organized by the Department of Applied Science and Technology and given by national and international speakers about various topics, with the purpose of broadening the students’ knowledge beyond the specific PhD Thesis topic. Seminars are announced on a regular basis by Department secretariat and PhD students attendance is certified. Finally, PhD students themselves are also encouraged to give informal seminars on their own research activities, within the ‘Aperidisat’ initiative.