Unipharma-Graduates Projects

Noopolis - an Italian non profit foundation working since 1986 in the educational field - and the International Relations Office of La Sapienza University of Rome are active partners in the Leonardo da Vinci Programme since 2003.
The Scientific Coordinator of the Unipharma Projects is Prof. Luciano Saso, Staff Scientist at the Department of Human Phisiology and Pharmacology of "La Sapienza", Teacher of the School of Pharmacy and founding member of Noopolis.
In partnership with a team of Italian Universities and a large number of hosting institutions, they have promoted until now 6 Mobility projects offering 24-week placements in other European countries to students or recent Master's degree graduates in the chemical, pharmaceutical and biomedical field.

Content of the Projects
The Unipharma-Graduates projects addresse recent Italian graduates selected through a public call for applications based upon competitive criteria.
The candidates are recent Master's Degree graduates from any Italian University in one of the following Master's Degree Courses: Chemistry, Biological Sciences, Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technologies.

The UPG projects aim at providing beneficiaries with professional and research experience of high quality in the laboratories of private or public European Research Centers, selected by the Scientific Coordinator of the projects on the basis of their scientific excellence.

The participants experience a stimulating environment and are directly involved in research projects carried out by the hosting institutions, in close contact with a qualified staff of scientists.
The placements provide them with practical working experience and with skills on modern technologies and techniques.
At the end of the placement, the trainees prepare a scientific report describing the experimental data obtained.
In most cases, both the trainees and the foreign tutors were very highly satisfied about the results. The trainees gave their time and enthusiasm and got experience and memories for life in return.
82 percent of them said that they learned a lot during their stay abroad and 96 percent would repeat it again if they had the chance. Thanks to this Leonardo da Vinci projects most trainees managed to enter selective Ph.D. programs or to obtain work or research positions in Italy and abroad.