This year, another DocFam+ student joined IREC.

DocFam+ is a doctoral training program in Functional Advanced Materials, led by CSIC and ICMAB, which gives the opportunity to 26 researchers of any nationality to conduct their research in Barcelona. The selected researchers will be able to carry out their doctoral thesis in one of the 7 collaborating entities: the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), ALBA Synchrotron, Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), Catalonia Institute for Energy Research (IREC), Institute for High Energy Physics (IFAE), Institute of Microelectronics of Barcelona (IMB-CNM-CSIC) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB).

The programme has established two calls for 26 researchers to be recruited, one in May 2023 and one in May 2024. The first 13 candidates joined one of the collaborating entities last year, and the 13 candidates of the second call are joining the different collaborating entities this year, including a student who will join IREC.

The student, Irina Martynova, has joined the Functional Nanomaterials department under the supervision of Andreu Cabot, where she will develop her doctoral thesis on Li-S battery catalysts. Her research will focus on the development of new generation catalytic materials and the use of advanced in situ characterisation techniques to discover the fundamental mechanisms of the redox reactions of sulphur, to achieve high stability Li-S batteries and low self-discharge even at high sulphur charges. Irina has already joined IREC, and the program will last 3 years.

DocFam+ involves a wide variety of research projects and hosting supervisors within the functional advanced materials sector, targeting three main applications in alignment with major European societal challenges: clean and secure energy, smart nanomedicine, and sustainable and low-cost electronics. Fellows will also have the opportunity to conduct secondments in international research institutions or companies.

Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the European Research Executive Agency can be held responsible for them.