 My name is Robert Fenton. I'm a professor here in cell biology. I was previously a Maricuri fellow in 2006, so I have an idea about what are the expectations and what are the levels of competition that these fellows are up against when they apply for a fellowship. I know that if the fellow is not excellent, then they would stand the very poor chance of obtaining a Maricuri fellowship. At the other side of that, I know that because they are excellent, you are going to gain into your research environment a very independent, a very intelligent researcher that is able to independently run a research project, contribute to the research within the environment, and your goal is to guide them as a supervisor not to determine exactly what they do during their fellowship period. I guess the one piece of advice is that if you don't feel that the researcher is in that very high quality bracket, then it is not worth investing the time because the chances of success are so small. The current fellow Chi Wu in my group who obtained a fellowship last year, he had a skill set that was missing in my laboratory. At the same time, Chi had absolutely no background in biology or in physiology or in clinical situations, and in order to progress in his career in academia in China, very much wanted to gain knowledge in these areas. My name is Chi Wu. I am originally from China. The Maricuri fellowship is one of the most prestigious fellowships that are out there. It really does provide me with the flexibility in terms of time, space and logistics, so I can really go abroad to a top research environment to continue my scientific career. You have to come up with a really novel idea. You have to revise your proposal several times before you submit it. There are many parts that are not directly related to research, but every part counts. The difference between a normal postdoc fellowship and a Maricuri fellowship is that with the Maricuri fellowship, the researchers are much more independent. They have a skill set or a range of techniques that usually you do not have in your own laboratory. One of the criteria for obtaining a Maricuri fellowship is to be able to transfer new skills and new knowledge from one research environment to another. For a normal postdoctoral fellowship, often the project is an idea potentially of your own, of which you find a researcher that could follow these ideas. With the fellowship, the aim is that the project is developed as a narrative between yourself and the other researcher in the hope that you can come up with a project that satisfies the needs of the researcher to gain new skills and the need of your research to also gain new skills. I think the number one challenge is to make sure that what the fellow wants to achieve in the period of the fellowship is truly attainable and what they would like to see is one or two very focused goals that are fully achievable that the fellow can then take on in their research career. The second thing that is very important is knowledge dissemination and public dissemination is very clearly addressed in your application. It's something that these scoring fellowships take quite highly. Maricuri fellowship can provide maybe the opportunity to go further on my career ladder so I can be, whether it be in academia or go to industry after I complete this fellowship so it really gives me the opportunity to move myself forward and to develop myself into an independent researcher. I've advanced with the Maricuri fellowship to a professorship within Aarhus University with the successful program there are the possibilities in place for you to make it in Aarhus.