Course and Partners

The Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in Natural products chemistry for Bioactives Application (BioNatural) will be a 2-year international program built up by 4 Universities, and 4 European countries: Lusófona University - COFAC (ULusófona, PT); Università degli Studi di Siena (UNISI, IT); Universitat Ramon Llull (RLU, ES); and, Namur University (NU, BE).

BioNatural will be entirely taught in English and it will lead to a multiple master’s degree diploma. Natural products are important sustainable sources of bioactive compounds with high potential to be used in several applications, including, pharmaceutics, dermocosmetics, medical devices, food supplements, and smart materials.

BioNatural offers a high-level course in natural product chemistry, medicinal chemistry and bioengineering sciences with specific additional competencies for using natural bioactive compounds. Students will have a 3 multi-location study at the consortium Universities, promoting their international mobility with lectures, workshops, field trips, seminars, and hands-on training, among others. The modular rotation will begin in the 1st semester at ULusófona (PT), where the students will learn about natural products chemistry. The 2nd semester will focus on Chemistry topics in UNISI (IT) for computational and nanotechnology studies. In the 3rd semester the students can choose from bioengineering studies focused on the molecular level that will be carried out in Barcelona (RLU, ES) or Namur University (BE) for green chemistry issues. For the final master's dissertation (4th semester), the students can choose an institution from the Consortium or one of the associate partner institutions.

BioNatural aims to nurture a new generation of researchers that can proceed to Ph.D., develop an international career in an SME or industry or create a start-up. BioNatural is supported by 28 associated partners including academic or SMEs of excellence from Brazil, South Africa, Argentina, and the USA, where the students can choose to do the final dissertation.