FEMS-Jensen Award
The FEMS-Jensen Award was established to support Early Career Scientists and microbiologists in particular. It is named after the Danish soil microbiologist Dr Hans Laurits Jensen (1898-1977). The award was initiated through a donation by the UK-microbiologist Dr John R. Norris CBE, an Editor of Methods in Microbiology and a former FEMS Treasurer.
DEADLINE: 1 March 2026, 23:59 PM CET.
Dr Jensen was a tutor of Dr Norris and many other soil microbiologists. He was one the 20th Century’s foremost scientists and teachers in the fields of symbiotic and non-symbiotic nitrogen fixation, soil microbiological activity, and the taxonomy of Actinomycetes, Azotobacter, mycobacteria and coryneform bacteria, as well as being a pioneer in microbial degradation of pesticides. Dr Jensen was active in England and Australia, as well as in his native Denmark.
Objective
The award is intended to recognize academic achievement and superior research accomplishments showing significant potential to develop an outstanding research career. The award honours Dr Hans Laurits Jensen for helping young scientists in establishing their scientific career.
Award
The award comprises a fellowship for spending at least half a year in an outstanding research laboratory chosen by the student. The maximum award amounts to EUR 10,000.
Eligibility
Outstanding European students of microbiology at the final stages of their PhD studies, or those who received their PhD-degree less than three years from the application deadline may apply.
Frequency
The award will, in principle, be given once every two years. The awardee will be announced during the FEMS Congress.
Application
Interested candidates are asked to submit their application to the Convenor of the Awards Board (the FEMS President). The application letter should be accompanied by:
- a completed application form (available through your myFEMS account)
- a curriculum vitae including a list of publications
- two reference letters from well-known European microbiologists
- an invitation letter from the director of the host laboratory
- an outline of the research project
You can apply via our awards submission system. In order to apply, you need a myFEMS account.
- Please create an account here or login with your credentials here.
- Once logged in to your myFEMS account, you can access the nomination forms for our Awards via this link.
You can also find the application forms at any time within your myFEMS account:
- login to your myFEMS account
- then under ‘Announcements’ click on the ‘Nominate for an award’ link
- select the Jensen award nomination form link
- fill in the form, save your progress and come back to it and once you are ready click Submit
Downloadable documents
Deadline
The deadline for the receipt of applications is 1 March of even years, those preceding the FEMS Congress year.
Awardees:
FEMS-Jensen Awardee 2023
Research project: From commensal to pathogen: exploring the role of carboxylate transporters during Candida albicans colonization
Home institute: University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
Host institute: Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, KU Leuven, Belgium
FEMS-Jensen Awardee 2019
Sarah Zecchin
Research project: Exploring the diversity and arsenic bioremediation potential of microbial
communities living in an acid mine drainage-affected mountain stream
Home institute: Department of Food, Environmental and Nutritional Sciences, University of Milano, Italy
Host institute: Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Watch our interview with Dr Sarah Zecchin at FEMS2019
FEMS-Jensen Awardee 2013
Francesca Turroni
Research project: Evaluation of the bifidobacterial microbe-host crosstalk
Home Institute: Department of Life Sciences, GenProbio srl., University of Palma, Italy
Host Institute: Department of Microbiology, University College Cork, Ireland
FEMS-Jensen Awardee 2010
Aviram Rasouly
Research Project: Defining the genetic basis of intracellular signaling regulating the expression of virulence factors by Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Home Institute: Department of Molecular Microbiology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
Host Institute: The Department of Microbiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA
FEMS-Jensen Awardee 2005
María-Luisa del Rio-González
Research Project: The role of chemokine receptors in B-cell migration in response to a thymus independent antigen
Home Institute: Arrixaca University Hospital, El Palmar (Murcia), Spain
Host Institute: Medizinische Hochschule, Hannover, Germany
All but one of the FEMS journals are fully open access (OA), with one journal, FEMS Microbiology Letters, offering free-to-publish and OA options. Open access is key to supporting the FEMS mission of disseminating high quality research as widely as possible: when high quality, peer reviewed sound science is open access, anyone, anywhere in the world with an internet connection, can read it.
