"SCIENTA-FELLOWS is an expansion of the transnational component of a well established life sciences fellowship programme at the University of Oslo. Through an extensive network of 25 academic and industrial partner organisations of research and training excellence, experienced researchers who show considerable promise in being tomorrow’s research leaders will undertake an integrated training programme based on freely chosen individual personalised research projects. First and foremost the training is designed to maximize the career prospects of the experienced researchers by the development of translational, multidisciplinary research skills along with a range of key transferable skills including entrepreneurship, dissemination and management.The partner organisations will host the fellows both within and outside the EU thus providing incoming and outgoing mobility opportunities across a wide geographical area. A reintegration component to assist promising European researchers to return to the EU will help to reduce the brain drain of European researchers to Third Countries.Fellows will be selected through a fair and transparent application and evaluation process where the fellow can freely choose the research project, host organisation and host supervisor. Guided by a personal career development plan and a comprehensive mentorship programme, SCIENTA-FELLOWS provides an integrated programme of training and support to prepare the fellow for scientific leadership.SME partners will provide an intersectoral component to enable researchers to experience the industrial research culture and develop commercial research skills which will provide a further boost to their career progression to scientific leadership.SCIENTA-FELLOWS will make a vital contribution to the development of the next generation of Europe’s scientific leaders and establish an international fellowship programme of training excellence which will continue far beyond its lifetime."