Dinis Araújo, PhD candidate at NOVA IMS and researcher at MagIC, has been awarded an Ethereum Foundation PhD Fellowship 2026, joining a select group of only 10 PhD researchers worldwide supported through this year's programme.

His awarded research project, “Privacy Preserving Coordination Rails for Municipal Energy Communities,” explores how privacy-preserving digital infrastructures can support the development of municipal energy communities.

The research addresses a key challenge in the transition towards more decentralised and sustainable energy systems: enabling citizens and local communities to exchange locally generated renewable energy while ensuring that transactions remain secure, verifiable and privacy-preserving. By combining blockchain-based technologies with the needs of urban energy communities, the project contributes to the development of trusted digital solutions for more sustainable and citizen-centred cities.

Dinis' PhD research is supervised by Professor Ian Scott and Professor Miguel de Castro Neto, Dean of NOVA IMS and Coordinator of NOVA Cidade – Urban Analytics Lab.

The fellowship represents an important international recognition of the quality and relevance of the research being developed by Dinis and reinforces MagIC's research at the intersection of data-driven technologies, smart cities and sustainability.

Congratulations to Dinis on this outstanding achievement!