The ADMIRE Fellowship Programme officially ended in September 2025, with the full cohort of Fellows having completed their Fellowships. All of the Fellows have moved on to new roles, including as tenure-track academics, independent researchers in research performing organisations, research scientists in industy and providing expertise and consultancy services.
In the early stage of the Programme, the focus was, largely, on the administrative elements of the Programme. The ADMIRE Programme is fully committed to open, transparent and merit-based recruitment (OTM-R) across its two, internationally advertised open calls for applications. The recruitment process followed four steps: advertising of the Calls, the submission of an application, a detailed international review and, where relevant, an interview of shortlisted candidates. Full guidance on the programme was prepared for both Calls, including guidance for applicants, their supervisors and reviewers and online briefing sessions for potential applicants. In paralleled to this, an international recruitment drive of Expert Remote Reviewers was also undertaken. All applications were evaluated on the basis of their scientific excellence, their proposed impact on the research and training development of the candidate and the impact on research and society more widely and on the quality of the proposed implementation of the individual research projects, to ensure the most ambitious - but realistic - research programmes.
During this final period, the focus was on ensuring that the services and supports were in place to allow the Fellows to excel in their Fellowships and bolster their career prospects. This included ensuring that suitable core and complementary training (locally and at the Programme level) was available and that funding and administrative stuctures were in place to ensure that research visits and secondments were fully supported. Communication and dissemination activities were also supported - as of now, a total of 8 peer-reviewed publications are available through open access journals; Fellows presented their work at more than 70 meetings and conferences, reaching an estimated audience of more than 80,000. These activities helped to build the Fellows' soft skills, while simultaneously helping to promote the excellence of their sciencitifc and research work.
