All applications must involve a receiving institution located in Europe and the application should preferably involve movement between countries.

The favoured form of application is that the applicant and the receiving institution are both located in Europe, or in a country bordering Europe or bordering the Mediterranean Sea, but scientists from these regions currently working in a non-European country (e.g. North-America) are also welcome to apply to return back to Europe or a country bordering Europe or bordering the Mediterranean Sea.

Candidates who interrupted their career due to childcare for at least 1 year will also be given special consideration when applying to stay within the same country (please indicate career breaks in your application).

Applications for long term fellowships to be held in the laboratory, institute or department in which the candidate obtained his or her MD or PhD, or to work again with the candidate's MD or PhD supervisor, no matter where the latter is located, are not considered.
 
A request to change laboratory or project once a fellowship has started, will have to be considered by the SAB (ERA-EDTA Scientific Advisory Board), upon request sent by the applicant to the President of ERA-EDTA.  Requests for such changes have to be fully justified by the candidate and are granted only in extreme circumstances.

Long-Term Fellowship:
Both the home and host institution should have a track record in high quality research, so that there is a high likelihood that the research programme carried out during the fellowship will be successful and can be successfully continued after return of the fellow to the home institution.
The research focus of the home institution should always be in the field of nephrology (basic, clinical or translational). The research focus of the receiving institution can also lie in an area other than kidney function and disease, provided that the research project carried out during the fellowship is related to kidney function and disease and will be continued in this area.

Short-Term Fellowship: ERA-EDTA does not consider applications for short term fellowships to prolong visits begun under other auspices, or as bridging fellowships between, or prior to, long term stays funded by ERA-EDTA, other organizations, the host institute or industry. Applications for fellowships to attend courses, workshops, or symposia will not be considered.

Applications to work in an industrial research laboratory with a view to developing new products or procedures will not be considered. However, research centres for basic research which are endowed by industries will be eligible.

Long-Term Fellowship: Applications are only considered from candidates with a maximum of 10 years post doctoral experience. Exceptions are made for applicants with career breaks due to military service or childcare.

Applicants should have a long-term commitment to perform research in the field of kidney function or disease and related areas, including renal pathology, pathophysiology, hypertension, cardiovascular consequences of renal disease, clinical epidemiology, dialysis and transplantation.
        
As a preferential qualification, applicants must have publications, on the topic of the research, in press or published in an international peer reviewed journal at the time of application. Publication updates can not be accepted after the application deadline.

In addition, applicants should have sufficient basal research experience in the field of their proposed project.

Short-Term Fellowship:
The fellowships are not restricted to candidates with significant research or clinical experience, although candidates with little experience have a lower priority.
There is no age limit.

Short-term fellowships are established to advance kidney research by helping basic and clinical investigators to visit another institution with a view to applying a technique not available in the home institution or to promote a research or clinical collaboration between two institutions.
ERA-EDTA does not consider applications for short term fellowships to prolong visits begun under other auspices, or as bridging fellowships between, or prior to, long term stays funded by ERA-EDTA, other organizations, the host institute or industry.
Applications for fellowships to attend courses, workshops, or symposia will not be considered.
 
On completion of the fellowship applicants must return to their home institution.

Applications have to be submitted online through the ERA-EDTA website.
Candidates can only submit applications for one project at one host laboratory at each round of selection.

The fact that an applicant has previously held an ERA-EDTA short or long term fellowship does not preclude further applications for a fellowship for a new project in. It is not possible to hold both a short- term and a long-term fellowship at the same time.

The deadlines are always: March 15th – first deadline
                                            September 1st – second deadline.

The deadline can be changed by the ERA-EDTA Council in case of need.
If this happens, the new date will appear as soon as possible on the ERA-EDTA web-site.

The SAB does a pre-screening evaluation and initial review and defines whether a review by an external expert is advisable.

Long-Term Fellowship: The basis for selection is a combination of the C.V. of the candidate (with due recognition given to the institutional context in which the candidate had worked), the project as presented, the record of the receiving institution and the long-term career perspective of the applicant.

Short-Term Fellowship: the reviewers are asked to judge the quality of the candidate, the research project and the receiving institution, but the major criterion deciding whether or not to award a fellowship will be the projected benefit to the home institution of the applicant. It is considered favourable when the proposed fellowship helps to establish, continue or intensify a long-term collaboration between the applicant's home and host institution.

Each application is scored independently by members of SAB. Then the SAB meets to consider the applications at once and, finally, to score them. The SAB meeting can be done also by teleconference or other electronic media.

The SAB sends the outcome of the selection to the ERA-EDTA Fellowship Office that will take care of immediately informing the ERA-EDTA President, the Secretary-Treasurer and the Councilor in charge for the Fellowship Programme. After the approval by the ERA-EDTA Council, the ERA-EDTA Fellowship Office sends the result to EMBO, publishes it on the ERA-EDTA web-site and sends a letter to all the applicants, signed by the President of ERA-EDTA, with the result of his/her application (acceptance/rejection).

At the end of the fellowship the researchers are asked to provide ERA-EDTA with a report of the activity done at the receiving institution as well as the reprints of any publications done during the fellowship.
The End Report Form may include diagrams, charts or illustrations to enhance the results. It is available either at the ERA-EDTA Fellowship Office, or by clicking on the bottom here below.

The report and the publications should be sent, within three months after the end of the fellowship, to the ERA-EDTA Fellowship Office which will forward them to the SAB.
SAB then sends its comments to the ERA-EDTA Fellowship Office.
The ERA-EDTA Fellowship Office informs the ERA-EDTA President and Secretary-Treasurer as well as the council member in charge of the Fellowships.

Upon receipt of the end report , the researcher will be sent a certificate by way of acknowledgement. This document will include the dates and duration of the fellowship, the place, ERA-EDTA LTF or STF number and the title of the project.
 
N.B It is important, when sending the end report, to clearly indicate the ERA-EDTA LTF or STF number and current address, in case it is different from the one submitted at the time of the application.

It is advisable that the possible applicants to the ERA-EDTA Fellowship programme know the European Centres available to receive a fellow.
For both the Long-Term and the Short-Term Fellowship the ERA-EDTA Council publishes a Call for European Research Centres interested in receiving a fellow from another European country. 
The call requires a short synopsis (max 3500 characters) on research programme in nephrology/ dialysis/ transplantation and the current lines of research of the host institute.
A similar Call is published for those Short Term Fellowships which are clinically oriented.
The call require the specific techniques (e.g. renal biopsy and pathology, epidemiological and statistical skills, renal ultrasound, etc) in which the fellows could be trained.
The SAB is required to suggest to the ERA-EDTA Council both possible areas for improvement of clinical nephrology as well as a list of possible Centres to be invited by the Council to join the ERA-EDTA Fellowship programme.
The SAB will then analyse the proposals sent by each centre and create a list of Research Centres and a list of Clinical Centres. Both lists will be published on the website of the Association as a link to the page of the Fellowship Programme.

Here below you can download both forms: