INternational VEnue for poSTgraduate education (INVEST)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Co-funding of regional, national and international programmes
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Italy
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-COFUND, 2010)
Start date: 2011-11-01
End date: 2017-04-30
Duration (months): 66.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2323060.0
EU funding (EUR): 929224.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele (USR) is a vibrant and acclaimed private University in Milan, Italy, registered by the Italian Ministry of Research. Together with the San Raffaele Research Institute and the San Raffaele Hospital, both controlled by the San Raffaele Foundation hereafter referred to as HSR, it is part of the San Raffaele Biomedical Science Park, hereafter referred to as SRBSP. A specific agreement rules the interactions between the USR and HSR. All the USR Professors within the Faculties of Medicine, Psychology and Philosophy, and with the School of Biotechnology have an exclusive relationship with the San Raffaele Foundation in the aim of collaborative teaching and shared research strategies and clinical programs. All academic, research and clinical activities take place on the SRBSP campus. The SRBSP is renown as a leading research structure in the field of Molecular Medicine in Italy and worldwide. The mission of the SRBSP is integration and interdisciplinarity for excellence in teaching, innovation in research, and optimal patients care. SRBSP launched recently an International Postdoctoral Programme devoted to the development and support of an international community of postdocs, both national and non-nationals, recruited according to excellence standards. Through INVEST, USR is committed to further develop such program and to promote mobility by fostering the enrolment of both incoming postdocs (non-residents who have not resided in the country of the host organization for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the deadline of the call) and Member State postdocs having carried out research in a third country for at least 3 years (reintegration scheme). The USR, given its position within SRBSP, offers a unique opportunity to be trained in cutting-edge research topics and state-of-the art techniques in a highly supportive, intensely collaborative and interdisciplinary environment. Postdocs will be recruited through merit-based transparent selection procedures and have the chance to freely choose the research topic of interest among those present within the Institute (see B1, page 5). As the SRBSP hosts both academic and corporate settlements, postdocs will have the opportunity to be trained in fields that span the domains of basic, applied, clinical and industrial research. In line with the commitment of USR to a life-long training of the future generation of EU-based scientists and science-related professionals, assigned projects will provide postdocs with new research skills also reaching out beyond research and into the worlds or scientific writing, communication, report preparation, grant writing, patent applications and project management. Funding by the European Union will thus increase the competitiveness of promising young scientists and will provide them with life-long career development opportunities and, by that, contribute to the growth of the Eu Higher Education Area.

Keywords: biomedical sciences,molecular medicine,transnational (incoming) mobility,international postdoctoral programme,merit-based selection,bottom-up approach,life-long training