European Young Investigator Award

Europe Backs Young Researchers

A prize of €1.25 million to set up their own research team in Europe: That's what awaits the winners of the 4th edition of the Euryi Awards, for 2007. Six young CNRS researchers were among the recipients of the three previous awards.

How can promising young researchers be enticed to stay in Europe? How can research bodies attract scientific excellence from outside Europe? The creation of the European Young Investigator Award (Euryi) was the response of the European Heads of Research Councils (Eurohorcs), which is actively involved in establishing the European Research Area (ERA). The Euryi awards were launched in Athens in October 2002.

Coordinated by the European Science Foundation and backed by the European Commission as part of the 6th Framework Program for Research and Technological Development (FP6), the award funds young researchers (within a maximum of ten years after receiving their PhD), enabling them to set up their own research team at a European university or research organization located in a participating country. In France, CNRS and Inserm are active partners in this program. 

The candidates, regardless of their nationality and whether they are tenured or postdoctoral researchers, are selected on the basis of scientific merit, potential leadership qualities, and the recognized excellence of their project and that of the host lab they have chosen. Initially selected at a national level by the research organizations themselves, candidates are then shortlisted by panels of international experts from various fields, namely biomedicine, information technology, human and social sciences, life sciences, mathematical, physical and chemical sciences, and Earth and astronomical sciences. An annual budget of €250,000 is allocated to each award winner for a period of five years. The young researchers are then free to budget their project, set up their team and invest in necessary equipment according to their own vision. Since the award was launched, six researchers at CNRS have been among the winners: Mihail-Dumitru Barboiu, Jakob Reichel, and Raffaele Colombelli in 2004, Valentina Emiliani in 2005 and, in 2006, Nicolas Gompel and Nicolas Mano.

“Winning the award was a real watershed in my career,” enthuses Emiliani, the 39-year-old Italian-born physicist, a specialist in the optical properties of quantum semiconductors. She conducts her work alongside the biologists at the Neurophysiology and Novel Microscopy Laboratory at Paris-V University.¹ There, Emiliani set up her own research team, which today comprises four people: two postdocs, a PhD student, and a research lecturer. In addition, the budget allocated by Euryi enabled her to acquire state-of-the-art optical equipment. “I'm working on novel microscopy techniques which, in particular, allow  the wavefront of light to be modified,” she explains. “These techniques will be applied, in cooperation with teams of biologists, to research into synaptic signals and response mechanisms of astrocytes² to various mechanical stimuli.”

Proposals by Euryi candidates are closely scrutinized by reviewers appointed by CNRS scientific department heads. Philippe Vernier, a senior researcher at CNRS and a board member of the CNRS Scientific Committee, is one such reviewer. In Vernier's opinion, the Euryi award is one of the best funding opportunities available.  “In my area of expertise, at any rate, an exceptionally high scientific level is required,” he explains. “The candidates would have no trouble getting admitted to the best European or American universities.” 

Going to the US to work is exactly what would have happened to 41-year-old Reichel, CNRS winner of the 2004 Euryi award and a researcher at the Laboratoire Kastler Brossel (LKB).³ While he was filing his application for the award, two renowned American universities– Santa Barbara and Penn State–contacted him and offered a permanent teaching position. So the Euryi awards look to be an effective plug for Europe's brain drain!

 Séverine Duparcq

> To apply:

www.drei.cnrs.fr/actualites/2006/septembre06/Euryi06