The Lisbon School of Medicine (FMUL), the Institute of Molecular Medicine (IMM) and Santa Maria University Hospital (HSM-CHLN) created a joint Doctoral Programme: Doctoral Programme of the Lisbon Academic Medical Centre (CAML). The programme focuses on research projects of excellence and has a flexible and modular training component. By focusing on research, it aims to encourage clinicians to ask new questions regarding patients and diseases and to bring them to the laboratory, and, conversely, to take questions from the laboratory to clinical practice. By bringing together medical and non-medical researchers, the programme encourages new collaborative approaches and more effective communication between basic and clinical researchers.