Vinod Tiwari is an Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmaceutical Engineering and Technology of the Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi. In the eleventh article of our JOYI series, he shares the hurdles he encountered while setting up a pharmacology lab in India as a young investigator.

Avishek Banik is an Assistant Professor at Institute of Health Sciences of the Presidency University, Kolkata. In the ninth article of our JOYI series, he shares his journey from fascination with the microscopic world to establishing a successful microbial interaction lab as a young investigator in India.

Sudarshan Gadadhar is a Scientist at Centre for Inflammation and Tissue Homeostasis of inStem, Bengaluru. In this invited article, he shares the significance of mentorship, collaboration and networking in establishing an independent research group as a young investigator in India.

Sudhir Ranganath is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Siddaganga Institute of Technology (SIT). He is one of the Young Investigators selected to attend YIM 2020 in Mahabalipuram. In this invited article, he talks about the role his mentors, collaborators, and scientific network have played in facilitating the process of setting up his lab.

Vivek Borse is a DST-INSPIRE faculty fellow at the Centre for Nanotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. He is one of the researchers selected to attend YIM 2020 as a Young Investigator(YI). In this invited article, he writes about some strategies to speed up the process of getting started after joining an Institute as new faculty.