PHYMOL trains researchers to develop accurate physical models, advance theoretical tools, and integrate them with machine learning to create robust molecular potentials for complex applications.
The PHYMOL programme is international (through secondments abroad) and interdisciplinary (spanning physics, chemistry, biology). We have strong industrial involvement, and aim to train students aware of commercial potential dreaming in fundamentals of molecular science and prepares Doctoral Candidates to meet future challenges in both academia and industry.
At the core of PHYMOL are weak intermolecular interactions, which drive essential processes such as protein folding, charge transfer in solar cells, and collisions in interstellar gas clouds. Understanding these forces is crucial for improving and controlling such phenomena. Modelling has become a key tool in interpreting experiments and guiding materials design, but accurately describing weak interactions remains a major challenge for many theoretical approaches.
Despite the importance of this field, there is currently no comprehensive training that combines theoretical foundations, method development, rigorous validation against experiment, and model building using both physical insight and machine learning. PHYMOL addresses this gap by uniting leading experts in chemical physics, molecular simulation, and machine learning, along with academic and industrial partners .The programme uses both deep physical understanding and modern machine learning to build improved tools for simulating how molecules behave and interact.
