EMBO Young Investigator Programme is a grant from EMBO that supports researchers in the early stages of their independent research careers in the life sciences. The program provides funding, networking opportunities, and access to the EMBO Young Investigator Network to help early-career scientists establish their laboratories and advance their research programs.

Benefits include financial support, mentoring, and connections across the EMBO scientific community. Award amounts vary by recipient. Eligible applicants are early-career researchers who have recently established independent research groups.

The application deadline is April 1, 2026.

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The 2026 application round will be open on 1 February 2026. Application Guidelines and Forms are available under the Downloads section. For re-applicants: one may reapply as many times as one fulfils eligibility criteria, but may be invited to the interview only twice.

The Young Investigator Committee invites selected candidates to submit a full application and attend an interview. The deadline for those invited to submit full applications is 12 July 2026. All invited candidates will be virtually interviewed by the Young Investigator Committee on either 17 or 18 November 2026.

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: 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 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”. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.

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