Applicants must:
- Have been independent research group leaders for at least one year and for less than six years on 1 January in the year of the application*
- Applicants based in an African country must have been either an independent group leader, or be on the path towards independence, for at least one year and for less than six years on 1 January in the year of application.
- Perform life science research in Chile, India, Singapore, or Taiwan. Through the EMBO Director’s Special Fund, EMBO has opened the call to researchers based in African countries. Please refer to the EMBO Subject Areas.
- Have an excellent track record
- Have published at least one senior author research paper** in an international peer-reviewed journal from independent work carried out in their laboratory
- Have obtained sufficient funding to run their laboratory
- Not have been interviewed by the selection committee more than twice in previous years
- Be able to attend a virtual interview on 17 or 18 November 2025
For detailed information on the eligibility criteria, please consult the application guidelines for group leaders based in Chile, India, Singapore, Taiwan or the applications guidelines for group leaders based in African countries.
* Extended eligibility period may apply under exceptional circumstances or for candidates with children. There is no age limit for applicants to the EMBO Global Investigator Network.
** At the application stage, EMBO will consider papers that are “in submission” and/or published on preprint servers. However, by the day of the interview, at least one senior author paper must have “accepted” status in an international peer reviewed journal. Senior author preprints with public in-depth peer reviews are accepted provided the following conditions are met:
- The preprint is posted on a recognized community preprint server such as Arxiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv, Zenodo;
- The peer reviews must be publicly available online;
- The peer reviews were verifiably obtained from an independent preprint peer review service such as “Peer Community In”, “eLife” or “Review Commons”;
- The reviews provide an in-depth expert analysis of the rigor and validity of the research and its contribution to the field.