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The DFG are prepared to fund a variety of exchange scenarios with no age restrictions in place, providing funding to all scientists based in Germany and at various stages of their careers.

"Scientists are always focused on experiments, gaining knowledge, but there is the human side that you need to be exposed to early on." -Anton Wutz

Systems Biology "is one of the areas as a postdoc that you have a chance to become a group leader early," Nicolas Le Novère, European Bioinformatics Institute, U.K.

Though the competition may be stiff, getting into such a high profile field has its own career rewards.

"By going to different labs," says Edvard Moser, "You learn different ways of thinking and you can create bridges between sub-disciplines and find something unexpected."

"Graduates are more or less offered leading positions at farms and wineries, and after a while you can find these young people in top positions of the wine industry."

[H]er team currently consists of an impressively diverse group including computer scientists, physicists, biochemists, and chemists.

Given the opportunity, Jana Kadukova says she would definitely be keen to work abroad again. "In my opinion, everyone should try this once in their life," she says

"I never saw motherhood and my career as mutually exclusive, but in Germany there seems to be a cultural barrier towards combining the two."

Lewis, who trained as a geoscientist to doctoral level, describes her work at Dstl as 'research, but a different kind of research.'

"Although the job market is tight, there is always room for good people."

"You have a lot to learn, but when you can argue the case of your patent application successfully to a patent examiner, it's great," says Sarah Thompson.

Early-Stage Training fellowships offer Ph.D. researchers the opportunity to pursue specialised training for a period of 3 months to 3 years as part of their doctoral training.

"I always tell young people to get a solid basis in their subject, whether it is chemistry, physics, or biology, and to specialise afterward."

"We are always on the lookout for people with project management skills." --Jochen Knolle

Making courageous career choices, says Linda Ko-Ferrigno, is a lot easier when "you have someone cheering you on."