The first cohort of the NeurotechEU Doctoral Network holds its inaugural meeting in the Netherlands

13 de November de 2026

• The Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH) is represented by five doctoral students in this first cohort, four of whom are affiliated with the Institute for Neurosciences UMH-CSIC.

From left to right: PhD students Luis Martínez, Lucas Sebastián, Gamil Hamam, María Climent and Ariel Expósito. Source: NeurotechEU.

Radboud University (the Netherlands) hosted the inaugural meeting of the first cohort of the Doctoral Network of the European University of Brain and Technology (NeurotechEU), held as part of the alliance’s General Assembly. The meeting brought together doctoral students from different European universities, allowing them to meet in person, share their research interests and begin building an international academic community focused on neuroscience and neurotechnology.

The students from Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH) taking part in this first cohort are María Climent, from the Ocular Neurobiology Laboratory; Ariel Expósito, from the Plasticity of Brain Networks Laboratory; Gamil Hamal, from the Neuroimmune Modulation of Nociception and Tissue Function research line; and Luis Martínez, from the Transcriptional and Epigenetic Mechanisms of Neuronal Plasticity Laboratory. All four are doctoral students in the Neuroscience PhD Programme and are conducting their research at the Institute for Neurosciences, a joint centre of the UMH and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). They are joined by Lucas Sebastián, from the PhD Programme in Industrial and Telecommunications Technologies, who is carrying out his doctoral research at the UMH University Institute for Engineering Research (I3E).

The initiative aims to bring together early-career researchers from a wide range of disciplines, including neuroscience, biomedical engineering, artificial intelligence, neurology and data science, fostering a truly interdisciplinary environment. During the various sessions, participants shared their experiences of the challenges of doctoral research, explored potential opportunities for collaboration and learned about the resources and activities that the NeurotechEU Doctoral Network will offer them over the coming years.

For many participants, the meeting also provided an opportunity to expand their professional networks beyond their home universities. As Climent points out: “As we have seen, the Doctoral Network offers us not only a space to meet other students and researchers from different universities who share similar interests, but also the opportunity to develop future collaborations that would be unlikely to emerge spontaneously.”

Group photo of the first cohort of the European University of Brain and Technology’s Doctoral Network. Credit: NeurotechEU.

The establishment of this first cohort marks another milestone in the development of NeurotechEU. Beyond the training activities set to begin in the coming months, the NeurotechEU Doctoral Network aims to become a European community of early-career researchers committed to advancing neurotechnology.

NeurotechEU is a European University alliance co-funded by the European Commission, working to create a higher education and research area focused on neurotechnology. It aims to develop affordable technological solutions to address health challenges related to neuroscience and mental health. In addition to the UMH, the NeurotechEU alliance comprises eight other universities: Radboud University (the Netherlands), Karolinska Institutet (Sweden), the University of Bonn (Germany), Boğaziçi University (Türkiye), Iuliu Hațieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Cluj-Napoca (Romania), the University of Lille (France), the Reykjavik University (Iceland) and the Medical University of Innsbruck (Austria). The University of Debrecen (Hungary), the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (Lithuania) and Western University (Canada) participate as associate partners.

Source:  The European University of Brain and Technology (NeurotechEU) - UMH  (neurotecheu@umh.es)