GOT ENERGY TALENT is a highly competitive, merit-based fellowship programme aimed at incorporating postdoctoral talent on the area of SMART ENERGY to enable them to conduct their own excellent research project and bringing it closer to the society, in order to produce a positive effect not only in terms of excellent science and talent attraction but also by strengthening the regional economy and promoting international networking. GOT ENERGY TALENT will bring in 34 experienced researchers to develop a 24-month stay through 2 open calls at international level (17 fellowships per call), over its 60 months of implementation. The postdoctoral fellows will have a full trans-national mobility experience and access to the research facilities of the organisations partnering the programme from and outside academia. The fellows will freely decide whether to carry out a 24-month advanced research project or a 12-month advanced research combined with a 12-month period devoted to applied research, in one of the hosting institutions within the network of internationally recognised organisations on this core area. GOT ENERGY TALENT will strengthen a favourable environment in order to attract talented and experienced researchers by offering an attractive ecosystem, composed of academic and industrial organisations focused on ENERGY AREA with a strong potential. The selection of the area is based on the objectives posed by the Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3) of the region of Madrid, which encompasses Energy, amongst other prioritised areas, along with the long-term vision of the Universidad de Alcalá and the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, as it is clear from their involvement in the CIE ‘Smart Energy’ focusing on Bioenergy and Smart Cities. Furthermore, GOT ENERGY TALENT is a demand-driven research programme addressing the significant challenges faces Europe in the field of Energy.

The main goal of SimpSoCoS is to explore how personal reactivity to social stress impacts on the pathophysiology of social cognition (SC) in schizophrenia (SZ). The drive: to open avenues for novel therapies by reducing the knowledge gap among the social context, the biological damage and the SZ clinical expression. SZ is a severe, highly stigmatised mental disorder conferring a vast economic burden. In Europe, the incidence of SZ is 15/100,000 persons and the morbidity risk, 7/1000. SC allows people to understand the social world. Thus, deficits in SC deeply limit functional recovery within SZ patients, causing severe socio-occupational disability. Yet, treatment efficacy on SC functioning is modest and a broad understanding of how daily life events influence SC dysfunction is missing. Stress evokes integrated physiological and behavioural adjustments in a changing environment. The autonomic nervous system and a neuroendocrine axis are the primary effector systems during stress responses. Within key stress regulatory brain circuits, the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) integrates and regulates physiological and behavioural stress responses and is a candidate modulator of social functioning. Its activation may be impaired in SZ. This project will address these challenges by connecting an interdisciplinary team combining stress integrative biology, clinical psychiatry research and neurophysiology. Based on a novel paradigm representative of real-life social exclusion situations for people with SZ, we propose a case-control evaluation of: a) SC performance before and after the stressor; b) subjective appraisal of the social stressor; c) cardiovascular and cortisol stress reactivity; d) the effect of mPFC activation by transcranial magnetic stimulation on the abovementioned endpoints in SZ patients. The interdisciplinary skills gained during this action will significantly enhance applicant’s future career prospects on bringing basic neuroscience closer to patient care.