Applicants must:
- Have been independent research group leaders for at least one year and for less than six years on 1 January of the year of application*.
- Conduct life sciences research in Chile, India, Singapore, or Taiwan (see the EMBO Subject Areas).
- Have an excellent track record.
- Have published at least one senior-author research article in an international peer-reviewed journal based on independent work carried out in their research group**.
- Have secured sufficient funding to run their laboratory.
- Not have been interviewed by the selection committee more than twice in previous application rounds.
- Be available to attend an online interview on 24 or 25 November 2026.
For detailed information on eligibility requirements, please consult the application guidelines.
* Extensions to the eligibility period may apply in cases of exceptional circumstances or for applicants with children. There is no age limit for applicants to the EMBO Global Investigator Network.
** At the application stage, EMBO will consider manuscripts that are under submission and/or published on preprint servers. However, by the date of the interview, applicants must have at least one senior-author research article with “accepted” status in an international peer-reviewed journal. Senior-author preprints accompanied by public, in-depth peer reviews may be accepted, provided that all of the following conditions are met:
- The preprint is posted on a recognised community preprint server (e.g. arXiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv, Zenodo).
- The peer reviews are publicly available online.
- The peer reviews were obtained from an independent preprint peer-review service (e.g. Peer Community In, eLife, Review Commons).
- The peer reviews provide an in-depth expert assessment of the scientific rigour, validity of the research, and its contribution to the field.