Deadline: 23-Jan-2026
The EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship Program provides support to outstanding postdoctoral researchers to pursue advanced training in the life sciences and promotes international exchange across EMBC Member States and global partner countries.
EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowships are awarded for a period of two years although shorter durations can be requested. The minimum fellowship duration that can be requested is one year. Fellowships must be started within one calendar year from the relevant evaluation cut-off.
The EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship provides numerous benefits depending on the host country. For fellowships in EMBC Member States, EMBO provides funds to the host institution to cover the cost of a full-time employment contract for the awardee. This includes employer and awardee social contributions, taxes, and net salary but excludes bench fees, overheads, or consumable costs.
Fellows also receive travel and relocation allowances, maternity and parental leave provisions, long-term sick leave extensions, and the option for part-time work up to a total duration of 36 months.
For fellowships outside EMBC Member States, fellows receive a stipend to cover living costs and may also access travel and relocation allowances, a child-daycare allowance, dependent child allowance, parental leave, and the option to work part-time.
Applicants must hold a PhD degree or equivalent at the start of the fellowship and must have obtained the degree within two years preceding the application submission date, with exceptions for parental leave, mandatory service, or serious illness. Candidates must also have at least one first (or joint first) author primary research paper published or accepted in an international peer-reviewed journal or a refereed preprint with publicly available independent reviews.
The fellowship promotes international mobility; applicants must move to a different country for the fellowship, with specific eligibility rules based on their nationality, PhD origin, and host country.
Research proposals must fall within EMBO’s scientific scope and address biological questions that provide mechanistic insight rather than descriptive observations. Projects that are a direct continuation of the PhD work are not eligible and applied or clinical research without a clear biological question will not be considered.
EMBO requires compliance with ethical research standards and integrity guidelines and mandates that fellows complete an online research integrity course. Applicants must also disclose any use of artificial intelligence tools in their application preparation.
The selection process evaluates the scientific excellence of the candidate, the proposed project, and the host laboratory. The assessment includes the applicant’s research achievements, reference letters, project quality, novelty, and the suitability of the host lab.
The process involves three stages—pre-screening, interviews, and final selection by the EMBO Fellowship Committee. Applicants selected in the Spring round must start between July 1 and February 15, and those in the Autumn round between January 1 and August 15 of the following year.
The deadline for applications is 23 January 2026.
For more information, visit EMBO.
