9th CRG Awards for Training Technicians

We are thrilled to announce the launch of the CRG Awards for Training Technicians (Spring and Autumn calls), an initiative by the CRG to enhance and promote the high-quality training of the technician’s community.

The CRG is committed to strengthen and promote high-quality training for technicians, in the laboratories and at core technologies. This call aims to provide the CRG technicians with additional opportunities to undertake training that are essential to their professional development and are NOT available within the CRG or PRBB Intervals and BIST training portfolio.

The CRG Awards for Training Technicians will cover the costs of external training for technicians employed by the CRG that is of high relevance to their professional career. External training refers to structured training courses, workshops or e-learning courses on specific scientific/technical topics or complementary skills, offered by any recognized training institution, excluding the CRG, the PRBB Intervals and BIST. The principal objective of a training application must be developing or improving specific professional skills. The proposed training should be relevant to the present or future work of the applicant and have an impact on her/his career development. After attending the training, awardee will have to submit a report within one month and deliver an internal training/seminar to transmit the acquired knowledge.

Eligibility

Applicants 

Laboratory, Core Technologies and EGA technicians employed by the CRG are eligible to apply.

Applicants who were successful in obtaining the grant in the previous call are also encouraged to apply; however, on equal scores, the candidate who has not obtained the award yet will be given priority.

External Training opportunities

External training refers to structured training courses, technical workshops, e-learning courses on specific scientific/technical topics or complementary skills, offered by any recognized training institution, or stay in a lab to learn a specific technique.

Application

Funding

Awards are launched twice per year (Spring and Autumn call).
In each call, two grants, each up to €1.000 are available to cover travel, accommodation, and course fees.

Timeline & deadline

The deadline for submitting proposals is 31st of May and 31st of October 2026.
The applicants should apply for a specific training opportunity, which takes place from July 2026 to January 2027 for the Spring call; and from December 2026 to June 2027 for the Autumn call. The retrospective applications (for expenditure already incurred on training courses) will not be considered.
Final decision will be announced to the applicants by early July for Spring call, and early December for Autumn call.

Submission

The Submission requires the following documents:

1. Letter of support from the supervising PI, Team Leader or Head of Unit 
   • What is the value of the training opportunity for the technician's work?
2. CV (max 2 pages)
3. Motivation letter
   • Why is the training opportunity relevant?
   • Provide detailed budget breakdown

Proposals must be submitted online: HERE 

Evaluation

Proposals will be evaluated by the following committee:

• Damjana Kastelic, PhD (Head of CRG Training and Academic Office)
• Monica Morales, PhD (Head of CRG Core Technologies)
• Marc Bataller, PhD (Program Technician)

Evaluators will be required to state any potential conflict of interest.

Proposals will be evaluated according to the following parameters:

1. Potential benefits of the training for the candidate's professional development.
   • How relevant are the skills learned for the candidate’s professional development.
2. Originality and value of the course.
   • Why this course specifically, how relevant are the organizers and instructors for the course's field?
   • Are there any similar courses offered by the CRG and/or PRBB Intervals and BIST training portfolio.
   • How well is the Budget being used?
3. Potential for the transfer of the acquired skills.
   • Possibility for the transfer of the acquired skills to a broader CRG community (e.g. potential contribution to workshop, lecture, co-workers).

After the course/stay

Successful applicants are expected to contribute back to the CRG community by sharing the knowledge and skills gained through the funded course.
After attending the training, awardee will have to submit a report within one month and deliver an internal training/seminar to transmit the acquired knowledge. 

If the report is not provided one month after attending the meeting, the person cannot apply for future calls. Depending on the content of the training activity, the successful applicants will be requested to develop potential training activity at the CRG from the attended course to transfer learnt knowledge and skills to other technicians and researchers.

For any information, please send an email to CRG Training and Academic office (TAO): training@crg.eu