Updated version as 1 April 2020 – The spread of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is continuing to quickly evolve in many countries. EMBO is continuing to monitor the situation closely to help prevent potential health and financial impact from the outbreak on EMBO Fellows, organizers of EMBO-funded events and the participants, and EMBO staff.
All EMBO Programmes continue to accept applications according to their usual timelines. We have, however, taken a series of measures and are continuously assessing them to see whether they have to be adapted:
EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowships (formerly called EMBO Long-Term Fellowships)
All awardees on an active EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship as of 16 March 2020 have been granted a two-month extension to help them cushion the impact of lab closures and delays on their careers. All interviews for EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowships will take place remotely through videoconference.
EMBO scientific events
Upcoming EMBO Courses & Workshops have been either cancelled or postponed. A list of the affected events can be found here. Approved meetings can be postponed until the end of 2021 with the full budget still available. Websites of affected meetings are updated with the information we receive from the organizers.
EMBO Short-Term Fellowships
The EMBO Short-Term Fellowship and Core Facility Fellowship application system remains open, but is currently not allowing new fellowships to start until the beginning of July at the earliest. This timeline is subject to continuous reassessment. Current fellowship holders or those starting in the near future may interrupt or defer their fellowships.
EMBO Press
EMBO Press is a signatory of the publisher commitment to making all of their COVID-19 and coronavirus-related manuscripts, and the available data supporting them, immediately accessible by encouraging immediate posting on preprint servers, by Open Access publication and by posting them on PubMed Central and other public health databases and by sharing the information with WHO.
EMBO Press has extended revision time on research manuscripts under its ‘scooping protection’ policy to allow for complete revision by laboratories affected by the pandemic. Please contact the scientific editor handling your manuscript.
Where possible, EMBO Press will offer, as an alternative to extended revision, the publication of manuscripts where essential experimental revision is impossible due to laboratory closures in appropriate partner journals.
Peer review and proof timelines have been revised to account for unavoidable delays.
How EMBO Press supports scientific communication during the COVID-19 pandemic: www.embopress.org/covid-19-policies.
EMBO|EMBL Symposia
Information and advice for speakers and participants at EMBO|EMBL Symposia cancelled or taking place virtually or in Heidelberg/Germany can be viewed here.
EMBO staff
To help slow down the spread of the coronavirus, to avoid being infected and in order to be able to maintain all EMBO activities, EMBO and EMBO Press staff are working separately and remotely. They can be contacted as usual. EMBO is asking for your understanding if in some cases the turnaround for work is nevertheless slower than usual.
Stay safe and well!
