Early-Career Advisory Group Application Form 2024

We’re looking to elect early-career researchers in life sciences and biomedicine to seven vacancies opening this August for a primary two-year term.

Our Early-Career Advisory Group (ECAG) acts to influence and support our mission and voice the needs and aspirations of early-career researchers within eLife. This year we are pleased to announce seven vacancies opening to join the group. Full terms and conditions, along with the ECAG definition of an early-career researcher, can be found here

To achieve the most representative group with our 13 members, priority will be given to candidates in countries not represented among the six continuing members of the group (who are currently based in Argentina, Australia, Lebanon, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States). We are especially interested in receiving applications from candidates based in the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands.

By submitting your information through this application form you are giving your consent for us to use the data in our applications, shortlisting, and elections process, as explained in the details of the Privacy Notice.

If you have any questions or comments about this form, the ECAG, and our elections process, please contact community@elifesciences.org.

About you
Contact details
We ask for a secondary email as a back up just in case we are unable to reach you via your primary email
Scientific careers often involve moving countries. If you're due to move countries, we would appreciate knowing where you will be based in the near future. This way we can understand what regions of the world you would represent as an ECAG member. For us to achieve the most representative group with our 13 spaces. If this does not apply, put N/A in the box. If you have any questions please email community@elifesciences.org.
Your career stage and field of study
PhD student, medical student, postdoc, assistant professor etc.
If you have a PhD, MD or MD-PhD, please enter the year you graduated here. If you are working towards a doctorate degree and have not yet graduated, please enter your expected year of graduation.
We define this as scientists who have secured funding to support a research group, for example in a Group Leader, Principal Investigator or Assistant Professor position.
Please note that you can have no more than five years’ active experience in an independent position to be eligible for election to ECAG. Time away for parental leave, health leave, or other reasons unrelated to research is excluded. If you had any career breaks you'd like to let us know about, please contact community@elifesciences.org.
Your application section
eLife promotes open access publishing, depositing preprints, reproducibility of research, constructive peer review, transparency and openness in science, and community and workplace equity, diversity and inclusion. ECAG members need to support these concepts in principle, and act on them wherever possible.
Please tick the box below to confirm that you understand and agree with our principles.

Use this space to tell us why you are enthusiastic to join the ECAG, and how you would contribute to our work. Here are some of the key priorities the group is working on in 2024:

* Building community support for our new model of publishing

* Increasing the involvement of early-career researchers in peer review at eLife

* Increasing equity, diversity and inclusion in eLife’s communities

* Identifying and addressing bias in the publishing process

It would help us to know if you have an experience contributing to other groups - formal or informal - in the sphere of research culture and science communication, so please list here if relevant.

More about you

We are committed to forming and empowering communities within eLife that reflect the diversity of the international research communities that we serve. We welcome candidates of all abilities, backgrounds, cultures, ethnicities, genders, races and sexual orientations.

Please note that providing information in this section of the form is optional. Any details you provide here will be viewed only by eLife’s executive staff in the Communities Team to help manage the applications, shortlisting and elections process. It will be deleted no later than three months after the election process is closed.

Family educational background
No single question can comprehensively capture someone’s socio-economic background, but this specific question will help us begin to develop a broader understanding and to compare with existing statistics.
We define this as someone who studied for an undergraduate degree or equivalent and whose parents or guardians had, at that time, not attended university or college to study for an undergraduate degree or equivalent.
Race and ethnicity
Race and ethnicity are two concepts related to human ancestry; both are social constructs and thus the products of their social context. Language is constantly evolving and there are a number of terms in use around race and ethnicity. Your answers to the following questions should be based on how you identify.
Gender
Trans is an umbrella term for people whose identity differs from what is typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth. People under the trans umbrella may describe themselves using one or more of a wide variety of terms – including transgender.
Sexual orientation
Neurodiversity
Disability and long-term health conditions
The next two questions ask about disability and long-term conditions in different ways. Asking about disability is complex, and these questions will help us to develop a broader understanding and compare with existing statistics. Please answer each question separately and don’t feel that your answer to one should determine your answer to the other.