The overall objective of the NaMeS project was to create a new generation of scientists capable of working in both scientific and business sectors and becoming stimulants and intermediaries of knowledge & technology transfer on an international level. The project aimed to provide an international, inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary doctoral programme for Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) in the research field combining chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology and material science.
Under the NaMeS project, we recruited 22 excellent, well-motivated ESRs who joined a research training programme, designed to provide them with the phenomenological knowledge concerning nanoscale processes to the creation of new materials applicable in the fields of industrial technology, medical diagnostics, and environmental protection. In the framework of the NaMeS programme, the ESRs conducted individual PhD research projects, which led them to the preparation of the PhD thesis and, in many cases, to the award of a doctoral degree. The essence of the projects was embedded in the state of art of modern basic research, but it also reached beyond the academic sector, creating good prospects for the commercialisation of the research results. To ensure high scientific quality as well as interdisciplinary and international dimension of the programme, every PhD student was supervised by highly qualified, experienced scientists, both: from the IChF and from a foreign research institution. Moreover, the NaMeS project envisaged the secondment of the NaMeS fellows to foreign partner institutions to gain new knowledge, skills, contacts, and experience of working in an international environment, hence providing ESRs with good background and prospects for a fruitful career in academia and beyond.
