The New University of Lisbon, UNL, was the first (since 2008) Portuguese University offering a PhD integrated program of its kind in Nanotechnology involving the areas of Nanofabrication, Nanobiotechnology and Multifunctional Nanomaterial’s, supported by 3 outstanding Associated Labs of UNL (Institute of Chemical and Biological Technology, CENIMAT/I3N and REQUIMTE) from Faculty of Sciences and Technology, besides other institutes like the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the National Health Institute Dr. Ricardo Jorge which develops its activity as State Laboratory of the health sector, National Reference Laboratory and National Health Observatory, providing so to the students a stimulating educational environment that spans from the grounds of research to specific applications.The goal of the collaborative program is to allow students to gain perspectives on nanotechnology from a wide community of scholars within and outside their disciplines in both course and thesis work. Moreover, being the format of the PhD program National, it will take into account a variety of external collaboration from well-recognized and outstanding European Institutions.

This program was established due to a real need, identified within the last years, where several PhD students from different scientific fields like Materials Science, Biotechnology, Physics, Biomedicine, Biology, Biochemistry and Chemistry, felt the necessity in attending courses outside their main field, in order to achieve the proposed objectives of their project thesis. Indeed, an important cornerstone of nanoscience and nanotechnology is its interdisciplinary nature, and so, a strong consortium with all the expertise’s is needed to achieve the ambitious and multidisplinary objectives above defined.