FRONTIERS Awards Final Fellowships to Ten Science Journalists

FRONTIERS Awards Final Fellowships to Ten Science Journalists

The FRONTIERS Science Journalism in Residency Programme has selected ten journalists for its fourth and final round of fellowships. This closing call, open to journalists at all career stages, drew sixty competitive applications from across the globe.

The selected fellows will carry out their residencies in eight European countries — Austria, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom — where they will pursue in-depth reporting on frontier science over stays lasting three to five months. Each fellow receives a grant to support their work.

Their projects span an ambitious range of topics: earthquakes and fusion energy, quantum mechanics and human evolution, neural repair and the ethics of disobedience, water conflict and invasive species, biodiversity loss and the energy transition.

Together, the cohort brings nine different nationalities from Europe and the Americas, and reflects a balanced mix of career stages, with three early-career, three mid-career, and four established professionals.

Meet the Fourth Call Fellows

  • Flora Alfiero (Italy) Covering Water Wars: Media, Science and the Politics of Hydro-Conflict in the Horn of Africa Host: IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, Netherlands
  • Stefany Hernández Arrieta (Colombia) Taming the Light: Igniting the Future of Nuclear Fusion Host: Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Portugal
  • Andrea Carolina Obaid Carrion (Chile) Can Bioengineering End Paralysis? Inside the Frontier Lab Rebuilding the Spine Host: Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), Spain
  • Gary Hartley (United Kingdom) Across Borders: Living with Europe’s Travelling Invertebrates Host: Department of Biodiversity Monitoring, Natural History Museum Stuttgart, Germany
  • Nuria Marquez Martinez (Mexico) The Righteous Brain: Why Some Humans Are Wired to Disobey Host: Ghent University, Belgium
  • Sandrine Mary (France) The Meaning Hunters: Inside the Quest to Understand Quantum Mechanics Host: Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI), Austria
  • Matthew McGrath (Ireland) Flying on Dead Donkeys: The Unintended Consequences of the Global Clean Energy Transition Host: Cardiff University, United Kingdom
  • Candela Antón de Vez Obradors (Spain) How to Narrate the Uncertain? Host: EVO ADAPTA, Spain
  • Jelena Prtoric (Croatia) Predicting Biodiversity Changes and Communicating Uncertainty Around It Host: German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle-Jena-Leipzig (iDiv), Germany
  • Chiara Sabelli (Italy) To Understand Earthquakes, Scientists Are Learning How to Trigger Them Host: ETH Zurich – Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Switzerland

FRONTIERS congratulates the new awardees and extends its thanks to all who applied over the four-year run of the programme.

FRONTIERS opens fourth call for applications

FRONTIERS opens fourth call for applications

The FRONTIERS Science Journalism in Residency Programme, funded by the European Research Council (ERC), is now accepting applications for its fourth and final round. Open to journalists across all career levels, the call will close on May 25, 2026, at 17:00 CEST.

Eligible applicants include science journalists at all levels of professional experience — early-career (up to 5 years), mid-career (6 to 9 years), and established (10 or more years) — who wish to carry out a residency of three to five months at a research institution in an EU Member State or a Horizon Europe associated country. Residency projects must engage with frontier science topics in close collaboration with researchers.

With up to ten fellowships available in this round, FRONTIERS continues its mission to support independent, in-depth science journalism at a time when the profession faces mounting pressures: precarious employment, shrinking newsrooms, and limited time and resources for thorough coverage. Results are expected to be announced in the summer of 2026, with residencies set to begin in the autumn.

Since its launch, the programme has supported 24 fellows across three rounds, all of whom have conducted residencies at European research institutions. As the final call of the FRONTIERS programme, this fourth round particularly welcomes proposals covering underrepresented or complex areas of science, beyond well-established themes, as well as applications involving host institutions from a broad geographical spread of countries.

Application process

Science journalists who have identified a host institution are invited to apply via the form on the FRONTIERS website. Applications must include a journalistic proposal focusing on ongoing frontier research projects and commitment letters from both the applicant and the host institution, and can include up to three recommendation letters.

Applicants can find more details on eligibility criteria and financial support for the FRONTIERS fellowships, tips on how to write a successful FRONTIERS project proposal, frequently asked questions, and more information on the FRONTIERS website.

Research institutions willing to host science journalists are encouraged to express their interest in being listed in the FRONTIERS database, which is available to prospective applicants on the project’s website.