Call for applications for admission to PhD programmes 42nd cycle Academic year 2026/2027 (ita/en).

Annex (ita/en)

Declaration on use of AI tools
Research project guidelines

Submission deadline for the online application: 16/06/2026 at 13:00 CEST

n. 4 positions, of which:

• n. 1 position funded on the topic “Experimental Pragmatics, Clinical Pragmatics and Neuropragmatics”
  The research will focus on one or more topics within experimental pragmatics, including neuropragmatics, developmental pragmatics, and pragmatic language disorders, also through the use of Natural Language Processing methods and computational modeling of behavioral and neural (in particular EEG) data.
   
• n. 1 position funded on the topic “Theoretical Syntax”
  The research will focus on one or more topics in theoretical syntax, adopting a formal approach such as that proposed by generative grammar. Topics include, among others, predicative structures, the role of functional words such as negation, copular constructions, the role of symmetry and symmetry-breaking phenomena, as well as expletive/pleonastic structures in natural language.
   
• n. 1 position funded on the topic “Psycho-/Neurolinguistics”
  The research will address one or more topics at the intersection of theoretical linguistics, experimental linguistics and neurolinguistics. Starting from the formal analysis of language, it will investigate aspects related to sentence processing from both syntactic and pragmatic perspectives, with the aim of testing specific theoretically grounded hypotheses. One or more methods typical of experimental research in this field will be employed, including grammaticality judgments, reaction time measures, EEG, eye-tracking, and neurophysiological techniques, as well as the study of language disorders, also using computational approaches.
   
• n. 1 position co-funded by the Fondazione Bussolera Branca and developed in collaboration with the Casa dell’Art Brut, on the topic “Language disorganization in psychiatric disorders and its artistic manifestations”
  The position will focus on one or more topics related to language disorganization in psychiatric disorders, with a focus on psychosis and with particular attention to its pragmatic, semantic, and discourse-level manifestations, as well as its possible connections with artistic expression in the context of outsider art. The project may integrate approaches from clinical linguistics, experimental pragmatics, and cognitive neuroscience, including the use of computational language analysis tools (NLP) and quantitative methodologies for the study of verbal and artistic productions. Particular emphasis will be placed on analyzing the relationships between linguistic processes, cognition, and creativity in patients.
  
  
   

Test schedule    

The results about the evaluation process will be published on the IUSS website http://www.iusspavia.it.
The interviews will be carried out on 09/07/2026 at 10 (CEST), at the IUSS building or online, via Zoom.