ERS Long-Term Research Fellowships — Fellowship

The European Respiratory Society (ERS) awards Long-Term Research Fellowships each year so that early-career respiratory researchers and clinicians can work in a laboratory or clinical department outside their own country for 6 to 24 months. The point is access to techniques and settings the applicant cannot reach at home.

Projects may be basic, translational, clinical, epidemiological or health-services research, as long as they are relevant to respiratory medicine. The fellowship is held full time and requires physical presence at the host institution; working from the home country is not permitted, and the period cannot be split.

Six routes share one application, one deadline and one selection process: a standard route to a host in Europe, an international route out of Europe for applicants based in Europe, a route for applicants from scientifically developing countries, and three jointly funded routes with SEPAR in Spain, SPLF in France and DZL in Germany.

Benefits & funding

Monthly living allowance built on a baseline of €3,520, adjusted by a country correction coefficient for the host country — for example 100% in Belgium and Luxembourg (€3,520), 131.3% in Denmark (€4,618), 163.7% in Switzerland (€5,766) and 77.5% in Poland (€2,728).
Only full months count towards the living allowance; partial months are not paid.
Any salary kept from the home institution is deducted from the living allowance. Health, safety, pension and social security contributions are not deducted.
Child allowance of €400 per month for each child under 18.
One-off mobility allowance of €200 for a move under 5,000 km or €700 over 5,000 km; applicants from scientifically developing countries receive €400 or €1,200 on the same distance bands.
On request, an upfront payment of up to €2,000 is released one month before the start date and deducted from the total grant.
All payments are made in euros. The fellowship carries no tax privileges — tax is the recipient’s responsibility.

Eligibility

A PhD or MD-PhD held by the application deadline, or an MD or MSc plus at least two years of completed full-time research experience after that degree.
Healthcare professionals such as nurses and physiotherapists need at least an MSc plus two years of research experience.
Postgraduate students still enrolled cannot apply.
Active ERS membership at the time of application.
The host must be in a different country from the applicant. Which route applies depends on where the applicant is based and where the host sits: applicants based in Europe or overseas may go to a European host under the standard route; applicants based in Europe may go outside Europe under the international route; applicants from low-, lower-middle- or upper-middle-income economies apply to the scientifically developing countries route and must show a respiratory research gap at home; the SEPAR, SPLF and DZL routes cover placements in or out of Spain, France and the German DZL sites.
Applicants must not have worked or lived at the host institution or in the host country for more than three consecutive months in the previous three years.
Adequate fluency in the language spoken at the host institution.
Anyone who has already held an ERS Long-Term Research Fellowship or a RESPIRE fellowship cannot apply again. A completed ERS short-term or clinical training fellowship is acceptable if it ended at least six months before the deadline and all reports were submitted.
The fellowship cannot run at the same time as another fellowship or similar funding scheme.

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Education required
Master · PhD

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Application process

1
Find a host institution and supervisor abroad and agree the project. ERS provides no help with this and no more than one applicant per department is selected per round.
2
Hold or take out active ERS membership before applying.
3
Write the research project narrative — objectives, work plan and career development plan — with one page each of figures, references and a Gantt chart, set in 12 pt Times New Roman or Arial.
4
Collect the supporting documents: highest degree certificate with an English translation where needed, passport or ID, a recommendation letter from a current or former supervisor of the past five years, the signed Host Supervisor Acceptance Form, a salary confirmation letter if the home institution pays a salary, and children’s birth certificates if the child allowance is claimed.
5
Submit before the deadline of 23:59 CEST; ERS states there is no extension.
6
Applications are peer-reviewed and scored by the ERS College of Experts — research project 50%, quality and potential of the applicant 40%, research environment 10% — and shortlisted candidates are interviewed.
7
The ERS Fellowships and Awards Working Group recommends, the Science Council validates and the Executive Committee endorses the final list. Strong applications that miss out may be placed on a reserve list.

Program timeline

Call opens
May 30, 2026
Application deadline, 23:59 CEST
Jul 30, 2026
Interviews with shortlisted candidates
Oct 27, 2026 to Oct 28, 2026
Decisions announced
Mid-December 2026
Earliest fellowship start date
Feb 1, 2027
Latest date by which the fellowship must begin
Jan 31, 2028