About the program

Summary

CarrerasLeaders is the postdoctoral program hosted by the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute (IJC) and co-funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA) Actions. 

The program will fund 16 excellent postdoctoral researchers for a period of 3 years. Applicants have complete freedom of research choice within the scope of blood cancers. CarrerasLeaders fellows will benefit from highly attractive working conditions in the healthy, inspiring, and creative working environment of the IJC, receive tailored training and mentoring. 

Suitable applicants have less than 7 years of postdoc experience, demonstrated their capacity to perform high-quality research and are interested to move to Spain. They have free choose of any of the IJC’s group and platform leaders as future supervisor. They will propose collaborative projects involving international and intersectoral partners through secondments. The selection is merit-based, founded on peer review in an open and transparent selection procedure. Detailed eligibility criteria, info on the selection process and a list of all participating labs can be found in the ‘Apply’ section (INSERT link). 

The CarrerasLeaders program has the following larger objectives:

  • To empower the next generation of scientific leaders to advance on the cure of blood cancers.
  • To boost career perspective of researchers from the three-dimensional perspective of consolidation, leadership and independence.
  • To improve the quality of postdoctoral training by addressing the societal needs in blood cancer and tailoring it to individual researchers. 
  • To enhance cooperation and transfer knowledge between sectors and disciplines.
  • To increase the competitiveness of the IJC in the world-wide research and innovation community.

Through training of experts, collaborative research and the fast-horizontal transfer of knowledge the research program of CarrerasLeaders holds the promise to advance on the many remaining unmet medical needs in haematological cancers and to participate in the delivery of new solutions to the Cancer Mission of Horizon Europe.

Institutions

Partner organisation name Country Academic Secondment
Fundació Internacional Josep Carreras ES    
International Society for Experimental Hematology US    
Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer ES    
Fundació Institució dels Centres de Recerca de Catalunya ES    
Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca ES    
Leadership Sculptor GmbH GE    
Fundación Científica de la Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer ES    
ThePaperMill ES    
European Hermatology Association NL    
Scienseed SL ES   Yes
IBM Research GmbH CH   Yes
IMMAGINA BioTechnology SRL IT   Yes
Milteny Biotech BV & CO KG DE   Yes
Quimatryx SL ES   Yes
MLL Munchner Leukamielabor GmbH DE   Yes
Applied Nanoparticles SL ES   Yes
Applied Research using Omic Sciences SL ES   Yes
OneChain Immunotherapeutics ES   Yes
GenomeScan B.V. NL   Yes
Zeclinics SL ES   Yes
Anaxomics Biotech SL ES   Yes
Humanitas Mirasole SPA IT Yes Yes
Université Libre de Bruxelles BE Yes Yes
Max Planck Gesellschaft zur Forderung der Wissencschaften EV DE Yes Yes
University of Newcastle upon Tyne UK Yes Yes
Genome Research limited (Wellcome Sanger Institute) UK Yes Yes
CharitéCentrum für Tumormedizin  DE Yes Yes
Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes PT Yes Yes
Fondazione per l’Istituto Oncologico di Ricerca (IOR) CH Yes Yes
Trustees of Columbia University in the city of New York US Yes Yes
New York University US Yes Yes
Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas ES Yes Yes
Ústav molekulární genetiky akademie ved ceske republiky verejna vyzkumna instituce CZ Yes Yes
Medizinische Hochschule Hannover DE Yes Yes
Deutsches Krebsforshungszentrum Heidelberg DE Yes Yes
Universitetet i Oslo NO Yes Yes
Fundació Institut de Recerca Biomèdica ES Yes Yes
Kither Biotech SRL IT   Yes
Novogene (UK) Company Limited UK   Yes
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne CH Yes Yes
MESOESTETIC Pharma Group SL ES   Yes
Semmelweis University H Yes Yes

Expected results

On the institutional level

  • Recruiting international top talent researchers, strengthening IJC research and innovation capacity and output. Additionally, enhancing the international visibility and attractiveness of IJC and positively impacting on the institute’s future capacity to attract international talent and funding.
  • Enhancing the quality, sustainability and diversity of the research and transferable skills training.
  • Consolidating and establishing new collaborations between the IJC with its ecosystem while enhancing the institute’s network and training opportunities for research staff at new Associated Partners acting as secondment hosts.
  • Support and train Associated Partners in Widening Countries to improve the research and clinical treatments on blood diseases.

On the regional and national level

  • Enriching the BioRegion of Barcelona and Catalonia, a leading life sciences and health hub in Europe.
  • Boosting regional competitiveness and creating value in the regional health sector by promoting research and innovation.
  • Dissemination of the program and its outcomes to its R&I ecosystem, health and medical authorities and policy makers.

On European and international level

  • Contributing to strengthening the skills development and mobility of researchers across borders.
  • CarrerasLeaders will strengthen the research and innovation capacity of the IJC and its Associated Partners and increase their scientific production.
  • CarrerasLeaders will also foster the European competitiveness in terms of greater transnational cohesion of HR and value chain efforts on common Cancer research topics.