Lilly Innovation Postdoctoral Fellowship Award Program
Initiated in 2012, the Lilly Innovation Fellowship Award (LIFA) program was created to identify and foster exceptional post-doctoral scientists pursuing ground breaking research projects. The prestigious LIFA program pairs a post-doctoral scientist with their academic mentor and a Lilly scientist, who serves as an industry mentor, to advance an innovative research proposal developed by the fellow. The goal of the LIFA program is to focus on research topics or “Grand Challenges” that will drive innovation in scientific areas of greatest strategic interest to Eli Lilly and Company, while remaining general enough to foster disruptive innovation.
Post-doctoral scientists have an option to elect any of the following research arrangements upon mutual agreement with their academic mentor.
- All research performed at academic institution in collaboration with Lilly mentor.
- Research performed at academic institution, with a limited number of short-term (less than 6 weeks) “visiting scientist” trips to Lilly.
- Research begins at academic institution and after a pre-determined time point, the post-doctoral scientist will transition full-time to a Lilly research site to complete the project under the LIFA Agreement.
Note: For research arrangements 1 and 2, the post-doctoral scientist will be an employee of the academic institution. However, in the research arrangement 3, the post-doctoral scientist will be an employee of the academic institution while at that location and then a Lilly fixed duration employee while at a Lilly site.
Research projects foster career development and are pre-competitive in nature; thus, publication both encouraged and expected. Career development resources and other benefits are provided, including up to four years of salary, benefits and limited travel support to attend scientific meetings while participating in the program.
Consideration for participation in the program is currently limited to invited academic research centers around the world.
For more information email LIFA@Lilly.com or visit http://www.lilly.com/research-development/innovation-starts/Pages/Lilly-Innovation-Fellowship-Award.aspx