Professor A. Javier Praena Rodríguez, from the Department of Atomic, Molecular and Nuclear Physics at the University of Granada, welcomes postdoctoral candidates interested in applying for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (MSCA-IF) in 2020 at this University. Please note that applicants must comply with the Mobility Rule (more information: http://sl.ugr.es/0aNV).

Brief description of the institution:

The University of Granada (UGR), founded in 1531, is one of the largest and most important universities in Spain. The UGR has been awarded with the "Human Resources Excellence in Research (HRS4R)", which reflects the UGR’s commitment to continuously improve its human resource policies in line with the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers. The UGR is also a leading institution in research, located in the top 5/10 of Spanish universities by a variety of ranking criteria, such as national R&D projects, fellowships awarded, publications, or international funding.

UGR is one of the few Spanish Universities listed in the Shanghai Top 500 ranking (http://sl.ugr.es/0aw0). The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) places the UGR in 268th position in the world and as the 4th highest ranked University in Spain, reaffirming its position as an institution at the forefront of national and international research. From the perspective of specialist areas in the ARWU rankings, the UGR is outstanding in Documentation (ranked in the 36th in the world) or Food science technology (ranked 37th in the world), Mathematics and Computer Science (ranked among the top 76-100 in the world).

The UGR has 4 researchers at the top of the Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) list in the Computer Science area. With regard to broader subject fields, the UGR is ranked in 45th position in the universities worldwide in the discipline of Engineering. It is also well recognized for its web presence (http://sl.ugr.es/0a6i) taking 36th place in the top 200 Universities in Europe. Internationally, we bet decidedly by our participation in the calls of the Framework Programme of the European Union. For the duration of the last two Framework Programmes, the UGR has obtained a total of 66 projects, with total funding of 18.02 million euros, and for H2020, 80 projects with total funding around 20.6 million euros.

Brief description of the Centre/Research Group

Key words: experimental neutron physics, nuclear physics, international facilities, n_TOF at CERN (Switzerland), ILL-Neutron for Society (France), IFMIF-DONES in Granada, nuclear astrophysics, nuclear data for fusion, neutron capture therapy, Monte Carlo simulations, MCNP, FLUKA, effect of neutrons in cell cultures and electronics, radioisotope production for medical applications.

Members: Fernando Arias de Saavedra (Full Professor), Ignacio Porras (Full Professor), María del Carmen Ruiz (Full Professor), Javier Praena (Associate Professor, permanent position), Maria Pedrosa (Ph Degree, junior postdoc), P. Torres (doctoral student), F. García (doctoral student).

Our main research activity is focused on experimental neutron physics and its application to the mentioned fields in the “Key words”. For this, we carry out experiments in the two most important international neutron sources: n_TOF-CERN and ILL. We are involved at n_TOF since 2007, leading several experiments for astrophysics and neutron capture therapy (NCT). Our agreement with ILL resulted in our management of one experimental line and the construction of a lab inside the reactor for our NCT studies. We developed the unique source in Spain located in the Spanish Accelerators Lab. We are deeply involved in the most exciting project in Spain, the IFMIF-DONES facility.

Granada is the host city of IFMIF-DONES; we lead in UGR the Complementary Applications of the facility beyond fusion technology and the design of the experimental hall for the selected applications. Articles: see Web of Science, author “Praena, J”.

Project description

The project is focused on: i) Nuclear data needs in fusion and other fields, ii) Complementary Applications of the IFMIF-DONES facility. Granada is the host city for IFMIF-DONES, which has been nominated as a key facility for Europe in the field of Energy. It will be the most powerful accelerator-based neutron source worldwide, thus, the complementary applications at IFMIF-DONES open outstanding possibilities in many fields. Before, experimental studies and simulations are needed to address solutions in relevant topics for the society making use of the IFMIF-DONES neutron beam, available in 2029. Therefore, a fundamental point will be conducting experiments at the existing facilities as n_TOF-CERN and ILL. At n_TOF, we will focus on the integral cross-sections of high priority for fusion applications, i.e. 59Co(n,γ)60Co cross-section. Cobalt is an element in many alloys to be used to build DEMO, first fusion reactor that will provide electricity. These data are extremely important for the experimental campaigns at IFMIF-DONES, which are keys for the design of DEMO. This kind of integral data are also very important in nuclear astrophysics for modelling the nucleosynthesis sites to disentangle fundamental problems arise in the cosmological models. At ILL, we will continue our studies on neutron capture therapy of cancer. Also, at n_TOF and ILL, we will perform experiments for the production at IFMIF-DONES of radioisotopes successful in cancers which are only produced at nuclear reactors, thus, with a compromised supply in the future: 177Lu for endocrine tumours, and 90Y for colorectal liver and hepatocellular cancers. Radioisotope production could be one of the complementary applications of the IFMIF-DONES, which can provide immediate solutions to social problems.

Research Area

Physics (PHY)

For a correct evaluation of your candidature, please send the documents below to Professor A. Javier Praena Rodríguez (jpraena@ugr.es):

• CV
• Letter of recommendation (optional)