Opening of the 3rd recruitment round to the Warsaw-4-PhD Doctoral School for the academic year 2025/2026

The Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences (IChF) offers full doctoral studies as part of the Warsaw PhD School in Natural and BioMedical Sciences (Warsaw-4-PhD). Founded in 2019, the Warsaw-4-PhD School gathers 9 Warsaw scientific institutions which run PhD programs in cooperation with each other. The school offers interdisciplinary education in 4 scientific disciplines: biology, chemistry, physics, and medicine. Each institution trains doctoral students in its leading scientific field. Recruitment for doctoral studies takes place three times a year.

The Warsaw-4-PhD Doctoral School has launched the third recruitment round for candidates wishing to begin doctoral studies in the academic year 2025/2026. The submission of application documents will be open from December 18, 2025, to January 6, 2026. Candidate interviews are scheduled to take place between January 28 and February 3, 2026.

Detailed information on the recruitment procedure, eligibility criteria, and required documents is available on the Doctoral School’s official website: https://warsaw4phd.eu/en/.

As part of this recruitment round, the PhD projects offered by the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences (IChF) are listed below. Applicants are invited to select not more than 3 PhD projects from the offer of the School, indicating their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices.

There is a possibility to become our intern for short period (preferably 1-3 months) – the internship is paid. Please contact the project supervisors directly.

We offer:

• high quality research opportunities;
• state-of-the-art research equipment and computational facilities;
• scientific collaboration with renowned research centres of Europe, USA, and Japan;
• possibility to acquire the teaching experience;
• frequent contacts with the research advisor;
• friendly and encouraging atmosphere.

The duration of doctoral studies is four years. The program and the remuneration confirm to the requirements of the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

We encourage interested candidates to review the available research topics, contact the project supervisors in advance in case of any questions, and submit their applications within the specified deadlines.

List of the avaliable projects within the 3rd recruitment round:

3.1 Catalytic Ortho–Para Hydrogen Conversion in NMR Spectroscopy: Implications for NMR Line Shape. Supervisor: Dr. hab. Piotr Bernatowicz. Contact: pbernatowicz@ichf.edu.pl Auxiliary Supervisor: Dr. Tomasz Ratajczyk. Contact: tratajczyk@ichf.edu.pl Number of places: 1.

3.2 Design and synthesis of selective catalysts for hydrocyanation reactions assisted by machine learning methods. Supervisor: Prof. Dr. hab. Volodymyr Sashuk. Contact: vsashuk@ichf.edu.pl Auxiliary Supervisor: Dr. Dawid Lichosyt. Contact: dlichosyt@ichf.edu.pl Number of places: 1. Scholarship/PhD student remuneration from grants:

The scholarship is funded under the project „Smart Catalyst Engineering for Hydrofunctionalization Reactions: From Selectivity Control to Predictive Model” No.  FENG.02.02-IP.05-0063/25 financed from the funds of Priority 2 of the European Funds for a Smart Economy 2021–2027 Program (FENG) Action 2.2 FIRST TEAM, with the Intermediate Institution being the Foundation for Polish Science. Final qualification for the Doctoral School will depend on the result obtained in the recruitment process conducted for the FIRST TEAM research project No. FENG.02.02-IP.05-0063/25 (a separate application to the recruitment process carried out within the framework of the project is required).

3.3 Dark plasmonic modes and dark electronic molecular states visualisation with Raman and luminescence excitation spectroscopy. Supervisor: Dr. hab. Łukasz Piątkowski. Contact: lukasz.j.piatkowski@put.poznan.pl Auxiliary Supervisor: Dr. Sylwester Gawinkowski. Contact: sgawinkowski@ichf.edu.pl Number of places: 1. Scholarship/PhD student remuneration from grants: 5000 PLN gross.

3.4 Spatial Determinants of Immunotherapy Resistance in Cancer. Supervisor: Prof. Dr. hab. Bożena Kamińska-Kaczmarek. Contact: b.kaminska@nencki.edu.pl Auxiliary Supervisor: Dr. Marcin Tabaka. Contact: mtabaka@ichf.edu.pl Number of places: 1.

3.5 Observation of the visual cycle in vivo using fluorescence with two-photon excitation. Supervisor: Prof. Dr. hab. Maciej Wojtkowski. Contact: mwojtkowski@ichf.edu.pl Auxiliary Supervisor: Dr. Piotr Kasprzycki. Contact: pkasprzycki@ichf.edu.pl Number of places: 1.

3.6 Non-invasive Optical Imaging of retinal ganglion cells. Supervisor: Prof. Dr. hab. Maciej Wojtkowski. Contact: mwojtkowski@ichf.edu.pl Auxiliary Supervisor: Dr. Sławomir Tomczewski. Contact: stomczewski@ichf.edu.pl Number of places: 1. Scholarship/PhD student remuneration from grants: 5000 PLN gross.

3.7 New types of inhibitors for bacterial proteases. Supervisor: Prof. Dr. hab. Marcin Drąg. Contact: marcin.drag@ichf.edu.pl Number of places: 2.

3.8 Development of a universal homogeneous assay platform for studying biomolecular interactions in research, diagnostics, and Drug discovery.. Supervisor: Prof. Dr. hab. Marcin Drąg. Contact: marcin.drag@ichf.edu.pl Auxiliary Supervisor: Dr. Łukasz Krzemiński. Contact: lukasz.krzeminski@ichf.edu.pl Number of places: 2. 

3.9 New catalytical protocols of conductive polymer synthesis and application of these polymers in chemosensing. Supervisor: Dr. hab. Piyush Sindhu Sharma, profesor instytutu. Contact: psharma@ichf.edu.pl Auxiliary Supervisor: Dr. inż. Maciej Cieplak. Contact: mcieplak@ichf.edu.pl Number of places: 1. Scholarship/PhD student remuneration from grants: 5000 PLN gross

3.10 Bleomycin-Inspired Molecular Constructs for DNA Damage in Cancer Therapy. Supervisor: Prof. Dr. hab. Marcin Drąg. Contact: marcin.drag@ichf.edu.pl Auxiliary Supervisor: Dr. Jeena Manayath Thekkeyil. Contact: jeena.manayath-thekkeyil@ichf.edu.pl Number of places: 1.

3.11 Self-assembly of amphiphilic peptides within the cancer cellular membrane. Supervisor: Prof. Dr. hab. Marcin Drąg. Contact: marcin.drag@ichf.edu.pl Auxiliary Supervisor: Dr. Jeena Manayath Thekkeyil. Contact: jeena.manayath-thekkeyil@ichf.edu.pl Number of places: 1.

3.12 Material Science: Inverse design-assisted biodegradable modular Dressings for negative pressure wound healing. Supervisor: Dr. hab. Marco Costantini. Contact: mcostantini@ichf.edu.pl Number of places: 1.

3.13 Tissue Engineering: MyoSeeds‑functionalized bioactive bioinks for Drug‑induced muscle disease modelling and on‑demand biofabrication. Supervisor: Dr. hab. Marco Costantini. Contact: mcostantini@ichf.edu.pl Number of places: 1.

3.14 Development of small-molecule viral protease inhibitors. Supervisor: Prof. Dr. hab. Marcin Drąg. Contact: marcin.drag@ichf.edu.pl Auxiliary Supervisor: Dr. Lennart Brewitz. Contact: Lennart.brewitz@ichf.edu.pl Number of places: 1.

3.15 Investigating the therapeutic potential of disease-related enzymes involved in post-translational protein modification. Supervisor: Prof. Dr. hab. Marcin Drąg. Contact: marcin.drag@ichf.edu.pl Auxiliary Supervisor: Dr. Lennart Brewitz. Contact: Lennart.brewitz@ichf.edu.pl Number of places: 1.

3.16 Development of effective synthetic methods for the preparation of metal alkoxides supported by chelating ligands. Supervisor: Prof. Dr. hab. inż. Janusz Lewiński. Contact: jlewinski@ichf.edu.pl Auxiliary Supervisor: Dr. inż. Iwona Justyniak. Contact: ijustyniak@ichf.edu.pl Number of places: 1.

3.17 Development of New Hole and Electron Transporting Organic Materials in Inverted Perovskite Solar Cells. Supervisor: Dr. hab. Daniel Prochowicz. Contact: dprochowicz@ichf.edu.pl Number of places: 2. Scholarship/PhD student remuneration from grants: 5000 PLN gross.