The Doctoral Program in Astronomy (DPA) is run by the Physics and Astronomy Department of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto.

The University of Porto is the leading higher education public institution in Portugal, placed ahead in all relevant international rankings. Also, Space Sciences is to field with the higher impact factor in Portugal, as quoted by ISI WoK, with a value twice the international reference value.

The University of Porto hosts the largest research institute in Space Sciences in Portugal, the Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço (IA), a research unit evaluated by the national foundation with excellent. IA offers a large team of researchers and optimal conditions, with wide range of international collaborations (including projects in ESO and ESA), for hosting students pursuing a Ph.D Research Project in any topic of Space Sciences.

The Astronomy projects being developed at the European Southern Observatory (ESO, of which Portugal is a member state), cover areas almost unexplored by science, such as Interferometry in the infrared with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) and in the sub-millimeter with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA).

In addition, the current and future missions of the European Space Agency (ESA, of which Portugal is also a member state), namely Herschel, Planck, Gaia, Solar Orbiter, Euclid, Juice and JWST, will further add to the challenges and visibility of Astronomy.

New domains will be open to observation. In parallel, innovative diagnostic tools and techniques are being integrated, as well as new ways of accessing and operating the facilities. The large telescopes in operation, and the ones under construction or being designed as the European-Extreme Large Telescope (E-ELT), real data collecting machines, require innovative technologies (adaptive optics for example), complex systems and techniques for the data handling, processing and analysis as well as new attitudes in the way astronomers access their own data. Further to that the use of the "Virtual Observatories" building upon various data banks and data bases, which include data from ground and space observations, also add new dimensions and opportunities. Consequently, the role of Astronomy as a privileged area for multidisciplinary training, across various fields of science and technology, shines out clearly.

The adequate training of the future astronomers and researchers, from a wide range of backgrounds, becomes even more challenging in order to fully prepare them in those new wide fields. Also, it is mandatory to expose and involve those young researchers, right from the beginning of their training, to international collaboration and participation in multinational and multidisciplinary teams.

This doctoral program provides such an opportunity for advanced training of the next generation of Astronomers under a truly international approach.

For inquiries please contact the course director at: pd.ast.director@fc.up.pt

View also:
FCUP's Sigarra site
FCUP's Post Graduation office