The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships) fund excellence in research and innovation by supporting researchers at all stages of their careers. They provide new knowledge and skills through cross-border mobility and exposure to different sectors and disciplines.

The MSCA-PF fellowships promote research excellence and are intended for PhD holders who wish to develop their research activities abroad, acquire new skills, advance their careers, and gain experience in other countries, disciplines, and non-academic sectors.

Interested researchers must apply together with a host organization, which can be a university, research institution, company, small or medium-sized enterprise, or another organization based in an EU Member State or a country associated with the Horizon Europe program. All disciplines are eligible for these postdoctoral fellowships, including research areas covered by the Euratom Research and Training Program.

Submission deadline – September 10^th 2025

NOVA University Lisbon is keen to host potential candidates to work on projects in the different scientific areas approached by our Research Units. NOVA is seeking to attract high quality postdoctoral researchers for joint applications to Marie Skłodowska-Curie Post doctoral Fellowships (MSCA-PF) in 2025.

If you are interested in applying for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA-PF) and you are interested to have NOVA as your host institution, then we would be happy to hear from you.

Who are we looking for?

We are looking for talented candidates with scientific background within the research areas addressed at NOVA. We expect you to have an excellent research track record and be enthusiastic, academically curious and open minded towards the diversity of research approaches.

All interested applicants are encouraged to directly contact the Principal Investigators (via email) of the available projects, as soon as possible. The required documents are a Motivation Letter and a Detailed CV.

For more information about the projects available in the different scientific areas, including a list of the contact points, please consult the table below.

If you have any further questions, you are very welcome to contact NOVA Research Office (nova.research@unl.pt).

• If you want to know more information about NOVA Research Units, please consult the link;
• Please visit the link from European Commission about the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions for additional information.

Title of the project	Supervisor(s)	Scientific Area
Host Institution: NOVA FCT/CEFITEC
Negative ion formation in electron transfer processes within clusters of biomolecules	Paulo Limão Vieira	PHY, CHE
Pulsed solar-pumped Ce:Nd:YAG lasers for efficient and rapid hydrogen extraction from aqueous ammonia under ambient condition without catalyst	Dawei Liang	PHY
Host Institution: NOVA FCT/CERIS
Optimized earthen plasters for eco-building	Paulina Faria	ENG, ENV, SOC
On the worst geometric imperfections for the design of steel structures	Rodrigo Gonçalves	ENG
Host Institution: NOVA FCT/CTS
Set-valued Estimation using CCGs to certify Neural Networks and Nonlinear Systems	Daniel Silvestre	ENG
Host Institution: NOVA FCT/LAQV
Lithium Ion Fluorescent Sensors and Materials for Clean and Sustainable Processes	Artur J. Moro	CHE
Host Institution: NOVA FCT/MARE-NOVA
CoastTrace: Tracing the Consequences of Sea Level Rise on Coastal Wetlands	Carlos David Santos	ENV, LIF
Host Institution: NOVA FCT/NOVA Math
Toeplitz operators on abstract Hardy spaces	Oleksiy Karlovych	MAT
Filling Gaps in Multiobjective and Derivative-Free Optimization	Ana Luísa Custódio	MAT
Host Institution: NOVA FCT/UCIBIO
NANOIMMUNOSERS	Ricardo Franco	CHE
Study of a novel host-internalization mechanism of Staphylococcus aureus	Rita Sobral	LIF
Host Institution: NOVA FCT/UNIDEMI
Assessing the sustainability of manufacturing as a service (MaaS) business model	Radu Godina	ENG, ECO
Host Institution: NOVA FCSH/CESEM
Portugal as a Global Axis for Studies in Musical Iconography	Luzia Aurora Rocha	SOC
Children’s behavior analysis in musical-theatre pieces designed for the very young	Ana Isabel Pereira	SOC
Music history and analysis (medieval and renaissance music)	Elsa de Luca	SOC
Plainchant and liturgical books	Océane Boudeau	SOC
The Tasks of Essayism in the Age of AI	João Pedro Cachopo	SOC
Liturgy, Memoria, and Performance: The Afterlife of Cistercian Saints in medieval Portuguese Manuscripts	Kristin Hoefener	SOC
Host Institution: NOVA FCSH/CETAPS
AI Translation Literacy for Healthcare Settings	Hanna Pieta	SOC
Host Institution: NOVA FCSH/CHAM
Transforming Territories: Archaeology, Heritage, and Community at the São Domingos Mine (T-ARCH São Domingos)	Leonor Plácido de Medeiros	SOC
TravelconT. The Crossroads of Contemporary Travel in Postcolonial Tourism	Maria João Castro	SOC
Host Institution: NOVA FCSH/CICS.NOVA
iMET – Innovating social dialogue and collective bargaining toward artificial intelligence in the MET Industries	Nuno Boavida	SOC
Metallica – Promoting Employee Involvement In Dispute Prevention and Resolution in the Face of the Restructuring Taking Place Due to the Twin Transition in Europe’s Metal Sector	Nuno Boavida	SOC
Arts and activism	Ricardo Campos	SOC
Governance and organization of work environments challenged by digitalisation	António Brandão Moniz	SOC
Climate Change and New Exoduses: Understanding Climate Migrants in Portugal	Bárbara Backstrom	SOC
Urban SDI for Public Policies Observatory	Rui Pedro Julião	SOC
Transforming Food Systems: Multidisciplinary Perspectives	Iva Pires	SOC
Emotional Geographies and Gender in AI: Perceptions and Social Norms	Eduarda Ferreira	SOC
Gender studies and gender inequalities: Gender-based violence, domestic and intimate partner violence	Dalila Cerejo	SOC
Host Institution: NOVA FCSH/IELT
Portuguese Dialogues	Margarida Santos Alpalhão/Isabel Barros Dias	SOC
Zoofictions and geopoetics: cartographies of animality	Márcia Neves	SOC
Host Institution: NOVA FCSH/IEM
Using the past – the middle ages in the spotlight	Alicia Miguélez	SOC
Books, Rituals and Space in a Cistercian Nunnery: Living, Praying and Reading in Lorvão, 13th–16th Centuries	Catarina Fernandes Barreira	SOC
Host Institution: NOVA FCSH/IFILNOVA
FILM AND DEATH	Susana Viegas	SOC
Managing medical scepticism in healthcare discourse	Maria Grazia Rossi	SOC
Reassessing Nietzsche’s Nachlass: New Perspectives	Pietro Gori	SOC
Host Institution: NOVA FCSH/IHC
Constitutional roots of authoritarianism in interwar Europe	Arturo Zoffman Rodriguez	SOC
Peripheral Petromodernity. A Global Microhistory of the Sines Area Project (1971-1999)	Ricardo Noronha	SOC
RESONANCE: Epistemologies for the Documentation of Affect and Becoming in Cultural Manifestations in Performance (1969-1979)	Hélia Marçal	SOC
Host Institution: NOVA FCSH/IPRI-NOVA
European Union Studies	Alice Cunha	SOC
The impact of digitalization on political organizations	Marco Lisi	SOC
Uneven Development and Electoral Geography: Explaining Radical Right Support in Rural Europe	João Cancela	SOC
Domestic Sources of Regional Foreign Policy – A Comparative Analysis of Brazil, India and South Africa in comparative	Carmen Fonseca	SOC
Host Institution: NMS/CHRC
CARDIOTWINcare	Jorge M. Mendes	LIF
Host Institution: NMS/iNOVA4Health
Mechanisms Contributing to Human Oocyte Spindle Assembly and Female Infertility	Ana Pimenta-Marques	LIF
Uncovering Novel Regulatory Pathways of Microtubule Organization Underlying Female Fertility	Ana Pimenta-Marques	LIF
Metabolism and Fate Regulation: Uncovering New Pathways in Stem Cell Identity	Catarina Homem	LIF
Molecular mechanisms of melanin transfer and processing within keratinocytes	Duarte Barral	LIF
Toward a biomimetic in vitro model of age-related macular degeneration featuring drusen formation	Miguel Seabra	LIF
Unraveling the role of chloesteryl hemisters in lysosomal dysfunction and atherosclerosis progression	Otilia Vieira	LIF
Innovating diabetic retinopathy disease models: dissecting pathophysiology and pioneering therapeutic strategies	Sandra Tenreiro	LIF
Host Institution: NSL/CEDIS
AI in courts	Vera Lúcia Raposo	LIF
A normative perspective on the medical standard of care and patient safety in Artificial Intelligence medicine	Vera Lúcia Raposo	LIF
IP & Sustainability Monitor	Giulia Priora	LIF
War and Law – The Future of Conflict	Felipe Pathé Duarte	LIF
Host Institution: NOVA IMS/MaGIC
Unified Deep Learning and LLM Frameworks for Reasoning over Structured and Unstructured Data.	Mauro Castelli	ENG
Large Language Models for Health: Trustworthy Clinical Decision Support.	Mauro Castelli	ENG
Efficient Modular Architectures for Scalable Large Language Models	Mauro Castelli	ENG
Causality-Aware Interpretable AI for Decision-Making in High-Stakes Domains	Mauro Castelli	ENG
Neuroevolutionary Architectures for Explainable Reinforcement Learning Agents	Mauro Castelli	ENG
Marketing & Technology (Smart services): Artificial Intelligence (AI’s) Risks and Benefits for consumer health and well-being	Diego Costa Pinto	SOC, ECO
Data Science and Decentralized Blockchain Systems: Shaping Sustainable Future Societies	Ian Scott	ENG
Semantic and Interpretable AI	Leonardo Vanneschi	ENG
Leveraging affective computing to understand user behaviour and emotional impact in human-computer interactionAffective computing	Mijail Naranjo Zolotov	ENG, SOC
INTEGRATE-TH — Integrated Data-Driven Tourism and Hospitality Intelligence Platform	Nuno António	ENG, SOC
Consumer behaviour change journey for technology Adoption	Tiago Oliveira	ENG, SOC
Smart Strategic Diffusion on Networks of Related Economic Activities	Flávio Pinheiro	SOC, ECO, ENG, MAT, PHY
Misinformation and Polarization: Between and Within Social Media Spaces	Flávio Pinheiro	SOC, ECO, ENG, MAT, PHY
The Moral Foundations of Political Discourse	Flávio Pinheiro	SOC, ECO, ENG, MAT, PHY
Coordination and Cooperation in Heterogeneous Networked Multiagent Systems	Flávio Pinheiro	SOC, ECO, ENG, MAT, PHY
Science of Science – Academic Performance Indicators	Flávio Pinheiro	SOC, ECO, ENG, MAT, PHY
Host Institution: ITQB NOVA/GREEN-IT
Decoding the mechanisms of microbiota inheritance in plants: from seeds to soil and beyond	Juan Ignacio Vílchez	LIF
Root Exudates as Drivers of Beneficial Microbiota Recruitment Under Stress	Juan Ignacio Vílchez	LIF
Host Institution: ITQB NOVA/MOSTMICRO
Super-Bug within: decoding host-persister interaction spatiotemporal dynamics	Pedro M. Pereira	LIF