BIOPHAM Mobility

Integration event

At the beginning of the Master’s programme, students will be welcomed in Lille and in Pisa through dedicated two-day integration events. These gatherings will provide students and teachers with valuable opportunities to meet from the very start, helping to strengthen connections and foster a sense of community. The integration events will include: Greetings and welcome speeches from university authorities and programme directors; Round-table introductions between students and faculty; Testimonies from alumni; sharing their experiences and advice; Q&A sessions to address student questions; Cultural presentations on Pisa and Lille (customs, traditions, student life); Presentations of the programme and courses; Shared lunches and dinners to encourage informal networking and Integration activities such as a treasure hunt or guided visits.These activities are designed not only to introduce students to the academic environment but also to help them integrate smoothly into the social and cultural life of their host cities.

Joint Winter Course (1^st and 2^nd year students)

Each January, all first-year and second-year students will participate in the joint winter course, co-organized by all partner institutions. These events will be held alternately in Lille and Pisa, taking advantage of the cities where most students reside at that time of year.

The programme is designed to provide students with a comprehensive learning experience on topics not typically taught in the classroom. It will feature:

• Advanced lectures on material sciences, pharmaceuticals, and biomaterials for health applications
• Industry-focused sessions led by professionals on formulation development, manufacturing technologies, and the challenges of industrial scale-up
• Workshops introducing Open Science practices, the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), as well as topics such as inclusion, diversity, gender equality, dissemination, communication, and public engagement
• Business, strategy, and innovation modules to strengthen career readiness

Beyond the academic content, the winter course is also designed to foster strong interactions among students, professors, invited scholars, and industry experts, who will contribute through lectures and specialized courses.

Thanks to the mobility scheme, this event will bring together both first- and second-year Master’s students, creating valuable opportunities for exchange. In addition, alumni will be invited to attend, further reinforcing programme cohesion and enabling the sharing of insights on mobility, courses, challenges, and aspirations.

Ultimately, this annual event will help students to expand their networks and strengthen their preparation for future careers.

During the first term at ULille (track 1) or UNIPI (track 2 and 3), all students will mainly complete a set of core courses covering a broad spectrum of condensed matter physics and materials science topics demonstrating their interests to pharmaceuticals. The primary objective of this first term is to harmonize and strengthen students' foundational knowledge, ensuring they reach the required competency level for their respective tracks.

During the second term, all students will relocate to UPC (track 1 and 2) or USK (track 3) depending on the chosen track. This term marks the transition from general coursework to more specialized subjects, allowing students to explore new concepts and approaches through a flexible selection of optional courses. Students will continue to strengthen their fundamental skills.  They will also begin specialized training in key areas related to the three tracks.  This term provides students with a dynamic and interdisciplinary learning experience, preparing them for further specialization in their respective tracks.

The third term will be the specialization term. Students of the Track 1 will go back to Lille. The courses will provide students development skills on the specialized materials science underlying the research pharmaceutical formulation. It will focus on: the different materials used in the field of pharmacy, their physical states, their specific modes of preparation and transformation induced by the typical constraints imposed by pharmaceutical industrial processes. Students in Track 2 will relocate to Pisa, where they will focus on the specialized biomaterials science underlying pharmaceutical research at the crossroad of biomedical and engineering science. It will offer advanced training in the design and construction of materials devices or technologies which interact with living systems, such as medical materials. Students engaged in the Track 3 will move to Katowice to develop their skills on biophysics of molecular materials (polymers, colloids, gels) as well as biological materials (peptides, proteins) of therapeutic interest and their specificities.

The fourth and final term is dedicated to the Master’s thesis. Students have the flexibility to choose their thesis location, which may be: i) a research laboratory at a partner university, ii) an associated academic or industry partner organization or iii) any other company offering a relevant, research-oriented topic for the Master’s thesis. Students will be strongly encouraged to leverage the extensive network of associated academic and industrial organizations, as well as external partner universities. Regardless of the chosen location, a formal agreement will be signed between the student, the host institution (company, laboratory, or organization), and the host university selected for the fourth term among the four partner institutions.

The educational aim of the academic programme is to qualify students to a level of excellence in one of the 3 specialised professionally oriented fields which have been identified:

•          Track 1: Pharmaceutical materials science

•          Track 2: Biomaterials for pharmaceutical applications

•          Track 3: Molecular biophysics of pharmaceuticals

In the three tracks, the programme includes a specialized training on some advanced experimental and numerical tools for which it exists a clear need for specialized education and training in the field. Students will get the opportunity to specialize on numerical techniques applied to pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical materials (atomistic modelling, computational biophysics, stochastic methods, artificial intelligence and machine learning with neural networks) and on dedicated advanced characterization experimental techniques including calorimetric techniques (DSC, MDSC), spectroscopic techniques (NMR, Raman, FTIR, UV, Broad Band Dielectrics), X-Ray diffraction and electronic microscopies (SEM/TEM) and also techniques available at synchrotron and neutron source applications (large-scale facilities).