During BioSB 2026, we will once again present the BioSB Young Investigator Award. The winner will receive a voucher of 500 Euros sponsored by the BioSB research school (to be spent on conference or course participation of their choice) and will be invited to present an honorary lecture in the plenary programme of BioSB 2027.

Nominations can ultimately be submitted until 6 March 2026

(find submission link below)

Notification of the winner of the call for nominations is set to 27 March 2026.

All nominees will of course be contacted by the conference organizers.

Criteria

The candidate must have conducted his/her bioinformatics or systems biology research primarily in a Dutch institute. The primary result on which the award will be based will be the PhD thesis written by the candidate. Therefore, the final version of the thesis of the candidate should have been submitted to the PhD reading committee at the candidate's university on March 3, 2026 at the latest.

Other criteria that might be considered by the award committee are:

• The candidate significantly contributed to the idea of the research;
• The research of the candidate resulted in novel or improved bioinformatics or systems biology methodologies;
• The research of the candidate advanced life sciences research;
• The candidate independently conducted the research;
• The research resulted in a scientific publication, software application or database;
• The work of the candidate has given broad visibility of bioinformatics or systems biology in the life sciences field;
• The candidate has otherwise significantly contributed to bioinformatics/systems biology or the bioinformatics/systems biology community in the Netherlands.

Procedure

Each nomination must be accompanied with:

• Name and affiliation of candidate
• Motivation for nomination by group leader of candidate
• Curriculum Vitae of the candidate
• A URL to the final version of the PhD thesis (preferably to the PDF of the printed version)

Award committee

The YIA committee 2026 consists of:

• Michiel Adriaens, MU (Chair. Also YIA member in 2025)
• Inge Holtman, UMCG
• Geo James, Rijk Zwaan B.V.
• Gustavo Stolfjeuken, VU

Submission

Nominations can be submitted via  this link.

Submission deadline: 6 March 2026

Please ensure that the nomination documents are complete, following the stated procedure.