• Provide letters of support from both host and home organisations' on their headed paper (please request template letters from support@instruct-eric.org)   
• Complete the applicant profile and application form in the ARIA system.   
• Be an early career researcher (pre-doctoral or early-stage post-doctoral fellow) from one of the Instruct members countries or organisations at the submission deadline. 
• Apply to an Instruct host facility in a different country.  
• Return to their home laboratory for at least six consecutive month after internship completion. 

Call Submission Guidelines

Instruct-ERIC provides access to state-of-the-art infrastructure and technology to support research in structural biology. Our aim is to encourage and facilitate the integrative use of technologies and methodologies that are available at our 23 Instruct facilities around Europe and in Israel. The Instruct-ERIC Internship Programme supports research visits of pre-doctoral and early postdoctoral fellows of three to six months duration to Instruct Centres. The Internship Programme aims to train European structural and cell biologists in a wide range of technologies, enabling young researchers to integrate different technologies to open up new areas of research.

Internships facilitate valuable collaborations with Instruct research groups applying techniques that are not available in the applicant’s laboratory and the long duration of awards allows interns to gain in depth experience in the host laboratory.

In preparing your application, please consider the points below:

• The home laboratory (applicant’s usual workplace) must be within an Instruct-ERIC Member country or organisation at the submission deadline.
• Internships are awarded for scientists spending a research period in an Instruct-ERIC facility.
• Internships are awarded for exchanges between laboratories in different Instruct members.
• The application requires the agreement of both the Instruct host facility and the applicant’s home institution.
• Applicants should be pre-doctoral scientists (PhD students) or early-stage postdoctoral fellows at the submission deadline.
• On completion of the internship applicants must return to their home laboratory for at least six consecutive months.
• Applications should focus on the benefit to the applicant’s research.
• Applications should be presented as a research project utilising at least one Instruct-ERIC technology not available in their home laboratory.
• The applicants ARIA profile is part of the proposal evaluation and should be complete prior to submission.
• Internships cover travel plus subsistence of the intern only and not of employees.
• Instruct-ERIC does not consider applications for internships to prolong visits begun under other auspices, or as bridging internships between, or prior to, long term stays funded by other organisations.
• Applications for internships to attend courses, workshops or symposia will not be considered.
• Incomplete applications will not be considered.

The Application and Review Process

The application process is handled via the online application system and written in English.

The home support letter must be attached to the online application.

The receiving Instruct facility should carefully consider their ability to support the intern applicant and the proposed work. This is a significant commitment and Instruct-ERIC may need to contact the receiver to confirm this before the application is approved. Instruct reserves the right to cancel any internship if there is doubt.
The receiving Instruct facility acceptance letter must be attached to the online application.

Applications will be refereed by at least two experts in the area of the research project within the Training Committee. Proposals are moderated by the Instruct Hub and reviewers from the Training Committee excluding the Centre hosting the internship and the intern's home country.

The Training Committee is asked to judge the quality of the candidate and the research project with the major criterion being the projected benefit to the applicant’s research project of accessing Instruct expertise and technologies towards the research outcome.

The internship call will be open submission throughout 2024 – there will be three evaluation deadlines, with decisions made on all submissions within one month of each deadline:

28. March 2024

27. June 2024

30. September 2024

Duration of support

Internships are intended for visits of minimum three and maximum six months. Internships should take place within one year of the award and start not later than six months of the award.

Travel costs, accommodation and subsistence expenditures

The internships cover travel and subsistence expenditures of the intern but not of any dependents. According to the length of the internship the support for travel costs, accommodation and subsistence will be capped from €3000 to €6000 (with a maximum contribution of €1000 per month). The hosting facility will support the applicant in sourcing accommodation.

Host facility support

For successful applicants Instruct contributes to the host facility’s costs though a regular Instruct access project associated to the internship. The support is proportional to the internship length with one access visit for three- and four-month internships and two access visits for five- and six-month internships. Contribution rates for the access visit(s) follow the normal rates for Instruct-funded access

End of Internship report

Within 2 months after completion of the internship the intern must submit an internship report through the online submission system ARIA. The end of internship report should detail the research objectives, results and further work to be undertaken. Diagrams, charts or figures may be included in the report.

Acknowledgment

There should be acknowledgement of Instruct-ERIC for all publications of research resulting from the internship using the following text:

"This work benefited from access to the [Name of Institute or facility], an Instruct-ERIC Centre. Financial support was provided by the Instruct-ERIC internship APPID xxxxx”