Human Frontier repatriation boost

Researchers awarded postdoctoral fellowships under the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) to study abroad are to get financial incentives to return home when the grant expires. The move reflects concern that a significant proportion are staying in the country that they have visited — particularly the United States.

Wiesel: money will improve training. Credit: ROBIN THOMAS

HFSP fellowships are to be extended from two to three years, and grant-holders will be able to spend the third year back home. The HFSP has also proposed the creation of a new career development award. This would allow repatriated fellows to apply for a two-year extension to their fellowship, including US$50,000 to build up an independent research group at home.

The HFSP was set up in 1989 to improve international collaboration in molecular biology and neuroscience. It now has a budget of about $50 million per year. But 70% of HFSP fellows who move to the United States remain there after completing their fellowship (see Nature 399, 398; 1999).

Under the proposed new scheme, the number of fellowships awarded each year would fall by one-third, to 110. But Torsten Wiesel, secretary-general of the HFSP and president emeritus of the Rockefeller University in New York, hopes that the new rules will improve HFSP fellows' training by giving them more time to adapt to a foreign environment and new equipment. Wiesel also hopes that they will improve the repatriation rate of fellows.