Fostering Scientific Excellence
Like its European counterpart, EMBL Australia aims to become an international flagship of scientific excellence. The most valuable resource EMBL provides to its member states is highly trained scientists. In Europe, EMBL’s turnover system means that it produces world-class researchers at a much higher rate than any other research institute, and has served as a model for numerous academic institutes around the world. EMBL alumni emerge trained in excellence and schooled in collaborative, cross-disciplinary research, enriching the scientific communities that they join and forging links between scientists around the world.
The similar missions that EMBL Australia Partner Laboratory Network will carry out on behalf of the nation, and the added value to Australia, will depend upon the excellence of its research performance. The EMBL model - freedom to pursue adventurous, discovery-based science by outstanding young international talent with guaranteed research packages, and state-of-the-art support facilities and services - is a proven recipe for innovation at the highest level. In providing this opportunity nationally through the Partner Laboratory Network, the EMBL Australia Scientific Program will strengthen the country’s “brain gain and retention.” This will occur through the development of a critical mass of expertise to support an active and world-leading research community. The Faculty Development Program, in which qualified young Groups Leaders spend five years at EMBL, with a further four years at a sponsoring Australian University, will provide additional opportunities for qualified young scientists to gain experience at EMBL overseas, returning to pursue their research in Australia.
EMBL has a very strong record of developing star scientists, providing young researchers the freedom to ask and address major innovative scientific questions in a supportive environment, with access to state of the art core facilities, thereby removing the constant distractions of writing frequent reports on short-term, incremental steps. An important feature of the EMBL Australia Partner Laboratory structure is the ensuring of dynamic turnover in the laboratory, guaranteed by fixed term contracts (five years extendable to a maximum of nine years) during which highly qualified Group Leaders can pursue high-risk, innovative research projects that often require years to realise. It is therefore imperative that Groups at EMBL Australia Partner Laboratory nodes are allowed the maximum time to work in the supportive collaborative environment of an EMBL Partner Laboratory Node.
An alternative distributive scheme discussed in some of the workshops, in which Groups would spend five years within a Partner Laboratory Node, then transfer to another sponsoring institution within Australia, was not deemed feasible by the EMBL Director General, since it did not provide a sufficient amount of protected time for a young research to conduct the high risk, collaborative research that has made the EMBL model successful. This scheme was therefore not pursued further as an option for the EMBL Australia Partner Laboratory Network.