EPFL Fellows · Experienced Researchers Incoming Fellowship Programme at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Experienced Researchers Incoming Fellowship Programme at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

EPFL Fellows is a postdoctoral fellowship programme launched by EPFL in 2012. The first EPFL Fellows programme was supported by the European Commission under the FP7 and offered 24 fellowships. The success of EPFL Fellows led to an extension of the programme under H2020. This new programme, namely, EPFL Fellows II, ensured the continuity of EPFL Fellows and boosted the impact of the programme by offering an additional 48 fellowships. EPFL Fellows was initially designed to fill a gap in the EPFL fellowship schemes. When the programme was initiated, EPFL already had significant experience with mobility programmes for PhD students and incoming tenure-track professors. There was, however, no programme targeted directly at young researchers between their PhD graduation and an assistant professor position. EPFL Fellows was designed to give young experienced researchers of any nationality or discipline a unique opportunity to deepen their research and management skills within highly qualified research groups at EPFL and to establish a robust scientific track record at a critical stage in their scientific careers. The programme included a comprehensive training package, including courses on topics such as ethics and research integrity, open science, data management, technology transfer and intellectual property, and research funding opportunities. This research-intensive training programme was intended to develop the leadership potential of the grantees and position them for success as future research leaders. EPFL Fellows II offered 48 fellowships distributed over two calls held in 2015 and 2016. The fellowships could be requested in any scientific discipline included in the areas of research of EPFL for a duration of 24 months. Given that some of the grantees left the programme prior to the completion of the 24-month fellowship to pursue other career opportunities, more beneficiaries could be enrolled in the programme. In total, 55 postdoctoral researchers benefited from the EPFL Fellows II fellowship programme. EPFL Fellows II was successful in attracting researchers from all over the world: 21 countries across 5 continents were represented in the cohort of the 55 grantees. In April 2020, 80% percent of the fellows were still working in Europe, which clearly speaks for the positive brain gain for ERA. Among them, 56% were still working at EPFL, which also shows the contribution of the programme to the stabilization of the career path of these young scientists. EPFL Fellows II was clearly successful in attracting highly skilled researchers and in providing them with excellent training, as evidenced from the number of peer-reviewed publications (159), patents (15), awards (8) and peer-reviewed, competitive fellowships (6) for the EPFL Fellows II cohort.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union