After six years, four cohorts and 78 fellows, the EUTOPIA-SIF MSCA Postdoctoral COFUND programme is drawing to a close in November 2026. To celebrate the achievements of its fellows and showcase the impact of their research and careers, a virtual, cross-campus closing event was organised on 10 September 2026 under the title Choose EUTOPIA for Science: MSCA COFUND Science and Innovation Fellowship Impact and Careers.
The event brought together more than 80 participants from the six universities of the EUTOPIA Alliance and beyond, including current and former fellows, supervisors, researchers and members of the administrative teams involved in the programme.
The event was opened by Yann Giraud, EUTOPIA-SIF Programme Coordinator, and Iryna Andriyanova, Vice-President for Research at CY Cergy Paris Université. Both highlighted the achievements of the programme, its contribution to the integration of the Alliance, and the role played by the administrative staff and researchers supervising and supporting the fellows. They also publicly announced that EUTOPIA-SIF will have a successor programme, the newly awarded EUTOPIA-SHIFT.
Morning session: fellows’ careers
The morning session focused on the career paths of former fellows and the different opportunities that can follow a postdoctoral fellowship.
Giustina Selvelli, former fellow at the University of Ljubljana, presented her career development and her decision to continue her research within her fellowship laboratory, the Department of Sociology at the Faculty of Arts. She was joined by Antonios Drakopoulos, a former fellow from the University of Gothenburg, who is now working at the University of Crete following professional experience in the pharmaceutical sector at AstraZeneca.
The session was chaired by Anne-Sofie Vanhaeght, Postdoctoral Career Counsellor at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The discussion addressed the evolution of academic career paths and the growing importance for researchers of being able to explain the societal value and relevance of their research. It also explored the role of international mobility and experience outside academia in broadening researchers’ career perspectives and skills.
Afternoon thematic sessions
The afternoon programme was organised into five concurrent thematic sessions, each focusing on one of the EUTOPIA-SIF key research areas.
1. Materials Engineering
The Materials Engineering session was chaired by Fatma Demir, researcher in the Sustainable Materials Engineering (SUME) research group at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and involved in the DURAMAT Doctoral Network in collaboration with EUTOPIA.
Aditya Singh, a current fellow pursuing his research within the Functional Electronic Materials Group, presented his research on mapping ferroelastic domains using electron-based techniques.
Xiaocui Wu, a former Warwick fellow who continued her research at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and is now working in France at the CNRS, presented her work on imaging conjugated polymers at the molecular scale.
The session also featured Rodrigo Alvarenga, a fellow of the MSCA Doctoral Network DURAMAT, who presented research on corrosion and hydrogen embrittlement in additively manufactured stainless steel for marine applications.
2. Sustainability
The Sustainability session was chaired by Lela Melon, former Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow, EUTOPIA Young Leader at Pompeu Fabra University and Professor of Business Law for Sustainability.
The session examined sustainability from two complementary temporal perspectives.
Dr Sanchari Deb, a former Warwick fellow who subsequently pursued research at Newcastle University and the Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study, looked towards the future and explored how local energy systems can be transformed in the way they produce, store and manage energy. A particular focus was placed on the use of AI-inspired approaches, including metaheuristics and machine learning, to support the planning and operation of these systems.
The second contribution, from Dr Aniket Mitra, who completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the ISTeP laboratory at CY Cergy Paris Université with a secondment at the AMGC laboratory at VUB, took a very different perspective, looking millions of years into the past. His research uses geological and fossil records to understand how climatic changes have affected living systems and what these past responses can teach us about the climate challenges faced today.
3. Data and Intelligence
The Data and Intelligence session brought together three presentations examining the relationship between artificial intelligence, the humanities, the social sciences and society.
The session was moderated by Long Tran-Thanh, Academic Lead for Warwick’s interdisciplinary spotlight on Digital, Data Science and Intelligence. Speakers included Alison Cooley, Director of the Warwick Institute for Advanced Study, EUTOPIA-SIF Local Programme Director and historian of the Roman Empire, and David Orrego-Carmona, former EUTOPIA Young Leader Academy fellow, member of the Multilingualism and Diversity Connected Community and Associate Professor in Warwick’s School of Modern Languages and Cultures.
The session opened with Alison Cooley’s presentation on AI-assisted research into ancient Roman inscriptions. Long Tran-Thanh then discussed the importance of incorporating perspectives from the social sciences and humanities into AI research. David Orrego-Carmona followed with a presentation on AI-supported translation and the importance of evaluating translation technologies in real-world social and community contexts.
4. Health
The Health session was chaired by Iztok Turel, Professor at the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology.
He was joined by Temiloluwa Adejumo from Vrije Universiteit Brussel, who carried out his secondment with Professor Turel as part of his research on the combined computational and experimental study of hydrogen production from liquid organic hydrogen carriers, catalysed by novel ruthenium and rhenium hydrazine complexes.
The session also featured Thomas Bilterys, now a lecturer at the University of Liverpool following his fellowship at the University of Warwick, and Ishutesh Jain, who continues his research at the University of Warwick following his fellowship within the Biomedical Sciences Directorate.
Their presentations covered two very different research topics: a new approach to chronic pain that targets sleep problems through a modified version of CBT-I taking into account the relationship between sleep and pain, and research exploring cellular responses to pressure.
5. Welfare and Inclusion
The Welfare and Inclusion session was chaired by Luciana Radu-Gaghi, former Vice-Rector for Internationalisation at CY Cergy Paris Université and former EUTOPIA-SIF supervisor.
The session took the form of a round-table discussion focusing on the fellows’ experiences before, during and after EUTOPIA-SIF. Discussions covered how the participants discovered the programme, what were their previous activities before joining SIF, what the fellowship brought to them as researchers—including greater research independence—and their plans for the future.
Théo Aiolfi, a former CYU fellow now working as a tenure-track researcher at the University of Bourgogne, and Andreana Pastena, a former Warwick fellow who subsequently pursued her research at the University of the Balearic Islands, shared their experiences and responded to questions from participants.
The round table also provided an opportunity to gather feedback from former fellows on their involvement in other EUTOPIA activities and working groups, including EUTOPIA Research Days and EUTOPIA Day, as well as their interest in participating in other EUTOPIA programmes such as the EUTOPIA Young Leaders Academy.
Feedback from the fellows
The formal presentations were followed by discussions with the participants. Fellows highlighted how EUTOPIA-SIF had opened up new perspectives for their research by giving them access to a broader research infrastructure, new collaborations and cross-campus platforms.
The closing event therefore provided an opportunity not only to showcase the research carried out through EUTOPIA-SIF, but also to reflect on the programme’s contribution to the fellows’ professional development and to their engagement with the wider EUTOPIA Alliance.
The EUTOPIA-SIF coordination team extends its warmest thanks to all the speakers, moderators and management teams who contributed to the organisation of the event, with particular thanks to VUB for coordinating its organisation.
“I think the Marie Curie title was quite helpful […]. When I had the secondment at Harvard, I was invited by Horizon Europe committee members to give a talk […]. I got a research fellowship at the University of Edinburgh’s IASH for six months this year […]. I am also working in a research support role at Warwick at the moment.”
Emrah Atasoy EUTOPIA-SIF Fellow from Warwick University
