The Department of Physics
About the Department of Physics
The Physics Department of the University of Coimbra (DFUC) was founded in 1772 as the Experimental Physics Office, part of the Faculty of Philosophy. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, it maintained an intense collaboration with the main European scientific centers, even during the country's most isolated periods.
It is currently part of the Faculty of Science and Technology and has modern facilities, including classrooms with excellent acoustics, well-equipped laboratories and a reference library. It also stands out as a high-performance computing hub, providing resources for researchers from all over the country.
With a highly qualified teaching staff, all of whom have PhDs, DFUC carries out research in various areas of Physics, with a high level of scientific production. Its research units have been rated “Excellent” and “Very Good” by the Foundation for Science and Technology. It maintains collaborations with institutions such as CERN, ESA, ESO and RAL, and is part of several European research networks.
Community liaison is a priority, reflected in collaboration with schools and companies, promoting academic internships and joint projects. The former “Gabinete de Fysica” now houses the Physics Museum, which preserves one of the most important historical collections of scientific instruments in the world.
The DFUC continues to be a place of knowledge, innovation and discovery, training generations of scientists and engineers, with high employability, and driving the advancement of Physics and Engineering at national and international level.