Computational Chemistry and Physics (Nordic) – (M.Sc.)

The Nordic Master Programme in Computational Chemistry and Physics offers a comprehensive and highly competitive training programme run by a team of collaborating partner universities each with their own specialisation in the computational disciplines.

The purpose of the programme is to provide state-of-the-art education in the fields of computational chemistry and physics, highlighting basic concepts and methods as well as important application areas such as chemical catalysis for sustainable energy, atmospheric chemistry, molecular devices for photonics and electronics, biomolecular engineering, nanotechnology and properties of modern materials. A strong emphasis is placed on dealing with reaction dynamics and material properties with descriptions that transcend scales in length and time and that connect atomistic, even electronic, structures to properties of macroscopic matter. Students will receive an education comprising trans-disciplinary aspects of theoretical modelling. The innovative aspects of the programme are related to the course curriculum as such as well as to the e-science competence that will be implemented in the teaching. Although the curriculum focuses on basic concepts in the area of computational chemistry and physics, a range of engineering problems of practical importance will be included. Participants will also gain proficiency in project design and implementation of software engineering projects and their applications.

Career prospects
The career opportunities for those who master the basics of materials modelling are indeed considerable. Ever since it became possible to carry out accurate calculations and computer simulations of matter, it has been a possible future scenario to design a material with specific properties and functions starting from basic models. Thanks to rapidly-increasing computing power and development of new generations of modelling tools we can now perform predictive modelling with the very purpose of assisting the process of creating and manufacturing new substances and so drastically shorten development time. The performance of industrially relevant materials can now be determined through engineering design at different time and length scales. We witness the use of global simulations in "assembly lines", where dedicated modelling assists in the completion of a new product with pre-specified properties, at costs that are orders of magnitude smaller than traditional R&D costs. As a consequence of this, a large number of students trained in the area are hired by companies; Astra Zeneca and ABB serve as two good examples in Sweden. The important mission of the academy therefore becomes not only to develop new research methods and provide results per se, but to train young researchers and equip them with general research skills that are useful in the industrial laboratory. This Master programme is fully compatible with that strategy.