Young researchers face a huge challenge once they have completed their education. The next step on the academic ladder – the transition from postdoctoral fellow to permanent employee – often requires the researcher to solve the especially difficult and time-consuming task of attracting significant external funding to the institution to which they want to become affiliated.
To avoid a generation gap among future diabetes researchers, the European Foundation for the Study of Diabetes, which has just given the first three researchers a boost in climbing the career ladder as part of the Foundation’s 2019 Future Leaders Award Programme.
The three university researchers who will receive an important career boost this year are: Claire Meek from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom for the project An Unwelcome Inheritance: Childhood Obesity after Gestational Diabetes; Atul Shahaji Deshmukh from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark for the project Discovery of Insulin-sensitizing Peptides and Proteins for the Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes; and Trine Moholdt from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway for the project Before the Beginning: Preconception Lifestyle Interventions to Improve Future Metabolic Health.
A committee has assessed each of the three as being among the foremost and most outstanding young researchers in clinical and basic diabetes research in Europe. Over the next 5 years, each will receive a total of DKK 5 million for their research.
“This is a significant sum for promising researchers at a critical stage in their careers. The grants can provide the necessary support in their efforts to become permanently employed at an institution within diabetes research and may therefore prove to be decisive for developing these talented researchers towards their becoming future leaders in diabetes research,” says Birgitte Nauntofte, CEO, Novo Nordisk Foundation.
EASD Press Team: [email protected]
Christian Mostrup Scheel, presseansvarlig, tlf.: 3067 4805, [email protected]
