The EMBO Young Investigator Programme supports life scientists who have been group leaders for less than four years at the time of application in setting up their laboratories. Young Investigators receive financial support for networking for four years and benefit from training opportunities, support for their lab members and mentoring. They become part of an international network of more than 700 current and former EMBO Young Investigators, Installation Grantees and Global Investigators.

• Applicants must have been an independent group leader for at least one year and for less than four years at the pre-application deadline (i.e having started no earlier than 1 April 2020 and no later than 1 April 2023), for the application round 2024.
• Have an excellent track record.
• They must carry out research in the life sciences in an EMBC Member State, an EMBC Associate Member State (currently India and Singapore) or in countries or territories covered by a co-operation agreement (currently Taiwan and Chile).
• Have obtained sufficient funding to run their laboratory.
• They must have published at least one senior author research paper* in an international peer-reviewed journal from independent work carried out in their own laboratory.
• For female candidates with children, the limit of four years since independence is automatically extended by one year per child of any age.
• For male applicants with children, the limit can be extended by the actual time taken off as paternity leave or – if their partner is working at least 80% FTE (full-time equivalent) – three months per child, whichever is longer.
• Illness and other care responsibilities are considered as exceptional circumstances on a case-by-case basis. Special provisions may also be made for clinical scientists. If you feel your circumstances warrant an extension of the eligibility period, please contact the EMBO Young Investigator Programme Office (yip@​embo.​org) for advice before applying.
• Applicants must be able to attend an online interview, in November 2024 (date TBC).

Applications to the EMBO Young Investigator Programme are accepted annually in a two-stage process and must be submitted through an online system.

Application process:

• The call for 2024 will open in February 2024
  
• The deadline for pre-applications is 01 April 2024, 12:00 CEST.
• Updated Application Guidelines for the application round 2024 will be available to download in February 2024.
• For re-applicants: only two total applications to the Programme are possible (one re-application).
• The Young Investigator Committee invites selected candidates to submit a full application and attend an interview.
• The deadline for full applications is mid-July 2024.
• All invited candidates will be virtually interviewed by the Young Investigator Committee in mid-November 2024.
• The final selection will be made at the Young Investigator Committee meeting.
• All applicants will be informed of the outcome of their application by email.

The complete application for the Young Investigator Programme consists of:

• CV
• Synopsis of past work
• Outline of the planned research project
• Short summary of research
• Publication list and list of three best papers
• Three letters of reference
• List of grants and pending grant applications
• ORCID number

Applicants must not indicate the journal impact factor or any other metrics such as H‑index, number of citations etc, in their application. EMBO is a signatory of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment ( DORA ), which recommends ​“not to use journal-based metrics, such as Journal Impact Factors, as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist’s contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions”.

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