Fellowships & funding

The ERA offers the opportunity to apply for short-term and long-term fellowships to favour the growth of young clinical investigators and researchers living in Europe, including countries bordering Europe and the Mediterranean Sea.

Only ERA members who are 40 or younger at the time of application submission can apply. An extension of the age limit can be considered if the applicant’s career has been interrupted due to childcare or severe illness; in any case this extension cannot exceed 2 years.

The ERA short-term clinical fellowships are designed to enable young people to support clinical training in the field of Nephrology and, in particular, to favour the growth of young clinical investigators and to facilitate cooperation among renal centres at an international level.

The applicant should identify a Host Institution located in the ERA geographical area where to do his/her fellowship. The fellowship should preferably involve movement between two countries (preferred option). In case there is no movement between two countries, there must at least be movement between two cities.

The duration of the short-term clinical fellowships is from a minimum of 2 months (60 days) to a maximum of 6 months (180 days).

On completion of the short-term fellowship, the applicants must return back to their Home Institution or to an “equivalent institution” to put into practice what they have learned during the fellowship.

The purpose of the ERA long-term fellowships is to support basic and clinical research in the field of Nephrology in the ERA geographical area.

Starting in 2019, to enhance the integration of the ERA activities, the ERA Long-term Fellowships are assigned to competitive research proposals by the ERA Working for Groups and Committees, with the aim to simultaneously finance the worthy ERA projects and to favour young researchers’ growth.

The young investigators submitting their candidature for an ERA Long-term Fellowship will be asked to choose the project they would like to join and thus apply for it, among a list of selected projects. Each scientific project will be carried out in a specific Centre located within the ERA geographical area.

The duration of the long-term fellowships is 12 months (365 days).

For both short-term and long-term, the fellowship grant amounts are based on the EMBO -European Molecular Biology Organisation- daily subsistence rates: these daily flat fee figures are meant to cover living expenses and any work-related taxes and insurances. A travel grant amount will also be added to the fellowship grant and it is meant to cover the expenses related to the round trip costs from the country of residence to the host country.

The ERA-ERAC supports the training of nephrologists (ERA Members only) and future clinical trials leaders by offering 3 fellowships. The MSc in Clinical Trials is a two-year, distance learning course with two residential sessions in Oxford that provides a thorough training in both the theoretical and practical aspects of conducting randomised clinical trials (more info about the course here). The candidate must provide excellent references, a clear/relevant personal statement and work experience in the field of nephrology.