Entering its fourth and final year the European Young Investigator Awards (EURYI) scheme is going out with style!

Twenty young researchers, which have been selected by high-level scientific peer review, will gather in Helsinki, Finland on 27 September 2007 to receive awards of as much as 1.2 million that will allow them to create research teams in Europe to focus on cutting-edge science research. This year, the recipients include more female and younger researchers than any other year.

EURYI is designed to attract outstanding young scientists from around the world to create their own research teams at European research centres and launch potential world-leading research careers. Most awards are between 1,000,000 and 1,250,000, comparable in size to the Nobel Prize.

The average age of this years winners is 33.1, making it the youngest group in EURYIs history. (The average age of last years winners is 35.4.) Six of the awardees are women, making it the highest number of female winners in any year.

The list of the 2007 Awardees includes researchers who will be based in eight countries Czech Republic, France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey. Their original ideas are ranging from new techniques to manipulate antimatter to disease gene mapping and functional genomics in the domestic dog.

It has been amazing to witness how the EURYI scheme has evolved and become a force to be reckoned with in recognising young researchers works by granting them Nobel Prize-scale funding for the past four years, commented Dr. John Marks, Chief Executive of the ESF.

I am particularly proud of the selection this year as we see more female researchers included, added Dr. Marks. It is also with mixed feeling to acknowledge this would be the last EURYI awards, at least in its present form, that will be co-organised by EuroHORCs (European Heads of Research Councils) and the ESF. The future for this typ
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Contact: Thomas Lau
tlau@esf.org
33-388-762-158
European Science Foundation
31-Jul-2007