Become a group leader

The European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) is a global leader in computational biology research. By joining us, you will build your group within the exceptional, highly collaborative life science communities of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the Wellcome Genome Campus near Cambridge, UK.

EMBL-EBI’s international links and its interdisciplinary fellowships enable you to build collaborations you’ve only dreamed of.

Our access to computational resources, support for method development work, and ability to work with important databases is second to none.

Building your research group

To build a good team with the right set of skills and blend of personalities, you need access to postdoctoral fellowship schemes and excellent administrative support. We offer both.

• The EMBL Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral programme (EIPOD) encourages candidates whose research crosses scientific boundaries. These projects bring together scientific fields that are usually separate or transfer techniques to a novel context.
• The EMBL-EBI–Sanger Postdoctoral programme (ESPOD) supports researchers who take both an experimental and computational approach to their work.
• The EMBL International PhD Programme provides students with the best starting platform for a successful career in science. Characterised by first-class training, internationality, dedicated mentoring and early independence in research, it is among the world’s most competitive PhD training schemes.
• Our administration aims to help our researchers stay focused on their work, providing a service that enables progress. Our support teams help you identify new opportunities, communicate and publicise your work and streamline your technical work environment.

Explore our research groups

About our research programme

Our research groups develop and apply computational approaches to answer fundamental and applied questions. These range from studying how the genome has evolved through to how the microbiome affects our health and environment.

We build and expand upon a variety of methods, from strategies for sequence and image analysis through to high-dimensional statistical models, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

All of our group leaders are embedded in the multidisciplinary and collaborative environment of EMBL, which provides many opportunities for interaction with other research groups. EMBL offers a well-integrated experimental and computational research programme across its six sites.

Research at EMBL-EBI is carried out in dedicated research groups and in some service teams. Most research groups collaborate closely with experimentalists, and some generate data themselves. There are 10 research groups at EMBL-EBI.

Emerging research themes

EMBL’s long-term scientific direction, Molecules to Ecosystems, aims to advance our understanding of ecosystems at the molecular level, applying expertise in molecular biology to study life in its natural context.

Research areas include applying experimental, computational and theoretical approaches to study how cells and organisms interact with each other and respond to fluctuating environments.

Within this programme, the new AI strategy aims to transform research at EMBL. Our research groups are developing new AI methods and using them to mine the world’s largest collection of biomedical data, hosted at EMBL-EBI. They are also integrating AI in experimental and observational studies, and more generally in the scientific process.