The road to independence: how to get funding in neuroscience
10 January 2016
FENS News
10 January, 2016 in FENS News
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The road to independence: how to get funding in neuroscience Yaksi E, Poirazi P, Hanganu-Opatz I. DOI: 10.1111/ejn.13169
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The Federation of European Neurosciences (FENS) and the Kavli foundation have recently founded the FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence (http://www.fens.org/Outreach/FENS-Kavli-Network-of-Excellence/) a group of young, outstanding neuroscientists dedicated to providing peer support for early career neuroscientists and serving as the voice for people at this career stage in shaping the future of neuroscience. Part of this support is this series of opinion articles whose primary goal is to provide advice about different aspects of career progression in neuroscience. The series started in August 2015 with a piece about getting hired and negotiating a group leader position (CITE) and a second article about how to build and effectively lead a research team (CITE). This article focuses on the funding opportunities for young principal investigators (PI) working in Europe and ways to maximize the possibility of funding neuroscience research projects. Unfortunately, there is no magic recipe for receiving funding, but we hope that our experiences will at least help avoid some of the commonly made mistakes and provide some tips that have helped us along the way.
Right after a successful post-doc, you managed to get a position as a junior PI and now it is time to build your team, equip your lab and this all costs money, lots of it. Most certainly raising the necessary funds is one of the most critical steps on the road to independence and it is likely to be one of the most critical factors that will impact the success of a young PI. How can one raise all that funding to pay for salaries, buy the essential equipment or even perhaps renovate his/her lab space up to reasonable standards. What are the ways to get the necessary funds to fuel up your innovative and exciting research program?