Of the 22 Incoming and the 11 Retaining fellowships awarded in the 2019 edition of the programme, 4 will fund IBE research. The Junior Leader “la Caixa” postdoctoral fellowships programme is aimed at hiring excellent researchers who wish to continue their research career in Spanish or Portuguese territory.

Martin Kuhlwilm of the Comparative Genomics Lab, Gerard Talavera of the Butterfly Diversity & Evolution Lab, Daniel J Richter of the Multicell Genome Lab and Íñigo Olalde - a current PostDoc at the Harvard Medical School and forthcoming member of the Paleogenomics Lab, have been awarded with the Junior Leader "la Caixa" fellowship in the 2019 Call. Kuhlwilm, Richter and Olalde will also be incorporated to the DCEXS-UPF department. 

Kuhlwilm and Talavera have obtained a Retaining Junior Leader fellowship and Richter and Olalde an Incoming one, all of them with a three-year grant. In addition to the economical amount, the Junior Leader programme includes an interdisciplinary training programme that focuses on aspects such as innovation and leadership.

About the Junior Leader “la Caixa” programme

The postdoctoral fellowships programme, Junior Leader “la Caixa”, is aimed at hiring excellent researchers—of any nationality—who wish to continue their research career in Spanish or Portuguese territory. Sponsored by Obra Social ”la Caixa”, the objectives of this programme are to foster high-quality, innovative research in Spain and to support the best scientific talents by providing them with an attractive, competitive environment in which to conduct excellent research.

The Junior Leader programme is divided into two different frames:

• Postdoctorate Junior Leader – Incoming: 22 postdoctoral fellowships for researchers of all nationalities. They will be offered a three-year employment contract to conduct a research project at accredited centres with the Severo Ochoa or María de Maeztu distinction of excellence, Institutos de Investigación Sanitaria Carlos IIII and units evaluated as excellent and exceptional by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia of Portugal. For Spanish institutions, candidates must have resided in Spain less than 12 months in the last three years while for Portuguese institutions, candidates must have resided in Portugal less than 12 months in the last three years.
• Postdoctorate Junior Leader – Retaining: 11 postdoctoral fellowships for researchers of all nationalities to carry out research at any university or research centre in Spain or Portugal. For Spanish institutions, candidates must have resided in Spain more than 12 months in the last three years while for Portuguese institutions, candidates must have resided in Portugal more than 12 months in the last three years.

By means of a complementary training programme, these fellowships are intended to consolidate research skills and to foster an independent scientific career as an option for the future.