Did you know that Serbia is EMBL’s most recent prospect member? Serbia’s prospect membership aligns with EMBL’s mission to bring together and integrate life sciences across Europe and our member states, in order to ensure the development and circulation of talent, collaborations and the shared use of infrastructures.

EMBL and its Member States

Today EMBL has 29 member states, one associate member state, and one prospect member state. The Associate Membership Scheme makes it possible for non-European countries to access all EMBL programmes and services. Associate member states have a reduced membership contribution to the budget of the laboratory and participate in EMBL Council meetings as observers with no voting rights. The first country to become an associate member was Australia in 2008. During the prospect membership phase, Serbia attends EMBL’s governing Council as an observer and after three years will be able to fully access the laboratory’s services and programmes as a Member State.

A few months ago, our Scientific Visitor Programme Manager, Claudia Martin, went to Belgrade to represent EMBL at the local Info Day related to the prospect membership and the opportunities available to the Serbian science sector. Read on to learn about her experience!

Claudia’s experience in Serbia

Spring was in the air when I arrived in the Serbian capital of Belgrade where I got the exciting opportunity to represent EICAT’s External Training team at the EMBL Info Day Serbia on 5 March 2024, alongside other EICAT members. EMBL’s International Relations team organised the event in cooperation with the Serbian partners, and my mission was to present opportunities for scientific visitors as well as giving a glimpse into the courses and conferences organised at EMBL.

Serbia joined EMBL as a prospect member state in June 2023, and this Info Day was organised and hosted by the Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia, along with the support of the Center for the Promotion of Science and the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR Srbija) in the modern premises of the Science Technology Park Belgrade.

In the presence of Assistant Minister from the Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation, Ivana Vukasinovic, the event showcased on the one hand the scientific services available and the opportunities EMBL can offer to Serbia, and on the other hand the training opportunities that EMBL provides through Internal and External Training. We also had a round table discussion on best practices for technology transfer, with the representation of EMBL’s commercial arm EMBLEM.

The meeting was an excellent opportunity to make new connections and present EMBL to the broader Serbian research community. More than 120 interested scientists from across the country came to Belgrade to find out more about what EMBL can offer and to have stimulating discussions with fellow researchers and training representatives. We answered many questions on what it takes to make a visit to one of the research groups happen, and in particular young graduates and PhD students showed very strong interest in travelling to one of the EMBL sites and were curious to find out what fellowships were available to them.
We hope we managed to encourage everyone to consider the opportunities available via the EMBL Scientific Visitor Programme and look forward to receiving many visitors from Serbia in the future!

Claudia Martin, Scientific Visitor Programme Manager

If you’re also interested in coming to EMBL and want to find out more about funding opportunities, visit our Scientific Visitor Programme page.

For information on Serbian science and innovation, visit the Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation site.