As EMBL’s Advanced Training Centre passes its 10^th anniversary, Corporate Partnership Manager Jonathan Rothblatt reflects on the ATC Corporate Partnership Programme and how it promotes training for outstanding scientists.

Since its opening in March 2010, the EMBL Advanced Training Centre (ATC) has served as a forum for the scientific exchange of new ideas, data, approaches and tools. An important component of this is the ATC Corporate Partnership Programme (CPP), which aims to connect companies with the latest developments in molecular biology and build successful long-term relationships between EMBL and corporate partners.

Supporting outstanding scientists

The support that industry partners provide through their membership in the CPP, ensures that outstanding scientists – from PhD students to established investigators – are not excluded from attending a course or conference, or working in an EMBL laboratory as a visiting scientist, because of a lack of funds to cover conference fees or travel expenses. Since 2010, CPP funding has provided fellowships covering registration fees and travel costs to more than 2,100 participants from over 90 countries, attending more than 350 EMBL or EMBO courses, conferences, or symposia.

In addition to the significant impact of their financial support, the engagement and collaboration of corporate partners is crucial in the development and delivery of EMBL’s courses and conferences. For example, of the 33 training courses held at EMBL Heidelberg in 2019, 11 were co-organised with CPP partners. Another example is the EMBL Conference ‘Expanding the Druggable Proteome with Chemical Biology’, which took place in February 2020. This conference, co-funded by the CPP, explored advances at the interface between academic and industry research. The scientific organisers included two CPP partners alongside academic leaders in the field (read the interview with one of the organisers Gerard Drewes here and check out the winning posters here).

Building mutually beneficial relationships

The strong involvement of EMBL scientists at all levels is another crucial factor in enabling the CPP to establish and develop mutually beneficial relationships with its corporate partners. The alliance of the CPP with its corporate partners is one facet of EMBL’s engagement with industry – in particular the life sciences business sector. This compliments the activities of EMBL’s technology transfer partner EMBLEM, the EMBL Course and Conference Office, the EMBL-EBI Industry Programme, and direct interactions with industry partners by EMBL group and team leaders and heads of core facilities.

With two new partners joining the CPP in 2019 and another already this year, the CPP has grown to 19 members, bringing together EMBL and global leaders in a range of business sectors, including biopharmaceuticals, diagnostics, information technology, research and clinical instrumentation, and laboratory products.

We look forward to seeing the programme continue to evolve and grow in future years, always striving to deliver outstanding value and maintain its impact on the future of science.

For further information, contact Jonathan Rothblatt (jonathan.rothblatt@embl.de, +49 6221 387 8799), or visit embl.org/cpp.

This article was originally published in Issue 95 of EMBLetc. magazine.