PRESS RELEASE
Announcing the selection of the 2023 FENS-Kavli Scholars
The FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence (FKNE) is pleased to announce the recruitment of the 2023 cohort of FENS-Kavli Scholars.
In 2014, FENS and the Kavli Foundation announced the FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence: a group of early career, independent neuroscience investigators based in Europe, and chosen for their scientific excellence, originality, and leadership. A new cohort of 15 FENS-Kavli Scholars representing 10 different European countries have now been selected. The new Scholars will join 15 other scholars who had been selected to represent the cohort of 2021, forming an active network of 30 Scholars based representing 15 different countries. FKNE Scholars are selected for 2 X 2-year terms, after which they become members of the growing network of FKNE Alumni.
“The selection of the 2023 cohort was an incredibly hard feat to accomplish, as a testament to the brilliance and talent of the young European neuroscience community. We are proud to announce the candidates that have been selected for the network, which excelled for brilliance and leadership. We are also painfully aware of how many exceptional scientists and leaders were left behind, with whom we hope to closely collaborate in the future” says Prof. Flavio Donato, chair of the 2023 selection committee.
“The Kavli Foundation is honored to welcome this remarkable cohort of scholars into the FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence,” said Amy Bernard, Director of Life Science at The Kavli Foundation. “We are inspired by their past accomplishments, and look forward to future transformative contributions in the field of neuroscience.”
The multidisciplinary, international network of FENS-Kavli Scholars is self-organised and aims to improve neuroscience in Europe and beyond through scientific exchange, advocacy, and outreach. FKNE Scholars participate in several meetings per year that allow for lively discussion of a range of topics across Neuroscience, as well as challenges and opportunities for European neuroscientists. They then put their ideas into action, for example through opinion articles and white-paper recommendations to European stakeholders on funding schemes and other key issues, public engagement, establishing conference childcare grants, and through the delivery of special prizes that are awarded during the FENS Forum for exceptional individuals. These prizes are aimed at shining a light on senior investigators who have shown outstanding examples mentorship, younger scientists who have delivered excellent PhD theses, and for role models who have substantially delivered the advancement of diversity in neuroscience.
“FKNE brings together exceptional cohorts of junior and mid-career neuroscientists from across Europe who help shape the future of the field. With generous support from the Kavli Foundation in collaboration with FENS, this network helps to advance discovery science of the brain and nervous system and amplify the voices of the next generation of neuroscientists. The combined commitment to research and advocacy has an immensely valuable impact for both science and society. On behalf of FENS leadership, I congratulate the new scholars who will enrich the network and the broader scientific community with fresh energy, experiences and ideas” says Professor Irene Tracy, President of FENS.
“We are living at a crucial crossroads for neuroscience: on one side, the development of new technologies for the study of the brain has allowed us to start investigating questions that were just unimaginable a decade ago. On the other, an ever-engaged and attentive society is more and more invested in acquiring a better understanding of brain functions, especially in light of a new-found appreciation of the importance of nurturing mental health, the development of biologically-inspired artificial intelligence, and the increase toll that psychiatric disorders demand on individuals and their care-givers. One of the challenges we will have to meet in the future will be to make sure that European institutions continue to invest in shared financial programs to support basic research, from which new knowledge originates, and by which the whole society benefits. As an ensemble of young – and daring – researchers, we at FKNE try to keep pushing the boundaries of what we are capable of doing, venturing into the unknown of one of the most complex machine ever built – the brain” says Prof. Flavio Donato, Assistant Professor at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, Switzerland, and Chair of the FENS Kavli Network.
The names and profiles of all FKNE Scholars are available on the FENS-Kavli Scholars webpage at www.fenskavlinetwork.org
Contact FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence (FKNE): excellence_network@fens.org