RIKEN Early Career Leaders Program
Overview
RIKEN has hired 13 researchers as Principal Investigators (PIs) under RIKEN Hakubi Fellows Program since 2018 and played a great role in nurturing excellent early career researchers. To develop support for junior researchers, we have established the RIKEN Early Career Leaders Program (ECL Program) using the concept of the Hakubi Fellows Program.
The RIKEN ECL Program offers 2 types of positions: Team Leader and Unit Leader. The positions focus on natural and mathematical sciences, including research areas bordering the humanities and social sciences, and provide researchers with an appropriate research environment corresponding to their research plan and career stage.
Adequate operation expenses will be provided to open a laboratory so that successful applicants can hire researchers and technical staff. It is also possible for successful applicants to host Special Postdoctoral Researchers, Junior Research Associates, International Program Associates and RIKEN Student Researchers, using the headquarters’ budget. In the course of their research, they can use various RIKEN facilities and shared-use equipment and will have opportunities to interact with researchers in a variety of research fields.
They can get advice from mentors, experienced researchers, regarding laboratory management. Regardless of whether they serve as a Team Leader or Unit Leader, RIKEN can provide them with a variety of career paths, such as the indefinite-term PI position.
The RIKEN ECL Program holds a call for applications for the two positions starting in April 2023, with the aim that the personnel hired through this call will be able to start work at RIKEN in FY 2024. This program will support early career researchers who will launch their own laboratory and work on their research project at RIKEN.
FY 2024 call for proposals
Call for RIKEN Early Career Leaders Program (FY2024)
Video tutorial for RIKEN ECL Program (Transcript of the video tutorial)
RIKEN ECL Team Leader
For talented junior researchers who are willing to take on ambitious research with high scientific and social impact, this program offers the opportunity to become an independent PI and lead their own team to advance their research.
- Term: 7 years
- Salary: 910,000 JPY per month
- Research budget: 10 to 40 million JPY per year (Additional 10 million yen will be provided to female Team Leaders in the first year from the Diversity Promotion Fund)
RIKEN ECL Unit Leader
For talented junior researchers who are willing to take on their own unique research, this program offers the opportunity to become an independent PI and develop the research. In particular, to promote employment of promising young researchers, a flexible research environment will be provided at a research center or equivalent with which they will be affiliated.
- Term: 5 years
- Salary: 710,000 JPY per month
- Research budget: Approximately 10 million per year (Additional 10 million yen will be provided to female Team Leaders in the first year from the Diversity Promotion Fund)
Sechi Kato Program for RIKEN ECL Program
The Sechi Kato Program was established in FY 2018 with the aim of fostering promising female researchers with a global outlook and spirit of inquiry so that they can play a great role and lead other female researchers on the global arena. The program name is associated with a pioneering female scientist, Kato Sechi (1893-1989) who, in the field of chemical analysis, contributed to fostering female researchers in Japan, and was the first female Chief Scientist of RIKEN. The Sechi Kato Program, which has been carried out under the RIKEN Hakubi Fellows Program, will be extended to the RIKEN ECL Program to offer Team Leader and Unit Leader positions for female researchers. The Sechi Kato Program provides research expenses up to 10 million yen annually to the RIKEN ECL Team/Unit Leaders in addition to the regular research expenses granted through the RIKEN ECL Program.