Associate interest group information and guidelines

About the Crick’s Interest Groups 

The Crick Interest Groups were developed to bring together scientists working on diverse biological systems, with many different complementary sets of expertise, to understand how these processes are regulated in health, and how their breakdown can result in diverse diseases. The aim of the Crick Interest Groups is to build communities around common scientific interest, enhance scientific discussion by strengthening existing interactions and promoting new links within and across the different Interest Groups. They also provide a key training platform for PhDs, postdocs and LRS. 

The ‘Associate Membership’ of the Crick Interest Groups scheme, in which we invite university partner researchers to join and take part in our internal Interest Group seminar programmes, aims to widen research horizons.
Regular Interest Group internal and external seminars enrich scientific discourse across the institute, whilst also maximising the training of our PhD students, Postdocs and team members. 

There are currently seven formal Interest Groups at the Crick:
•    Cancer 
•    Development and Stem Cells
•    Genes to Cells
•    Immunology
•    Infections
•    Neuroscience
•    Structural & Chemical Biology

Please find more information about these groups and their scientific membership on the main interest group page

Internal series, external series - what is the difference?

There are two Interest Group series: internal and external

Internal seminar series are advertised in-house and only open to Crick Interest Group and Associate Interest Group members. These seminars involve the presentation of work in progress, where ideas and interpretation may not be fully formed, and therefore there is a clear need for confidentiality amongst those attending. The Crick provides a unique and exciting opportunity for its researchers to share diverse knowledge and ideas at an early stage thereby promoting collaboration and accelerating discovery. Speakers in all the internal Interest Group series are PhD students, Postdocs and other lab members but not Group Leaders who speak in other series.

External seminars are open to a wider audience who will be able to see events on the external website or receive an update from the mailing lists. Speakers in the external Interest Group series are always external non-Crick researchers.

Training benefits

A major purpose of the internal Interest Group talks is to provide training for PhD students and Postdocs, who should give talks in one of the series, as advised by their Group Leader. The minimum number of talks per PhD student is one talk early in their 3rd year and their exit seminar, which coincides with their PhD viva. Postdocs are expected to present at least once every 2 years.

Application Guidelines

•    As an Associate Member of one of the seven Crick Interest Groups we will ask two members of your group (students or early-stage post-docs), whose work most closely aligns with those of the Crick researchers, to present their research in the Interest Group Internal series
•    Applications from Partner University PIs should be supported by a Crick Group Leader and the form includes a short a statement (approx. 200 words) indicating the applicant’s interest and what they would bring to the Interest Group(s) that they wish to join , as well as three exemplar publications (see application form)
•    Upon acceptance, this material will be used to inform the Interest Group of the new members’ interests
•    If your application is successful you, as the Associate Interest Group member, will be offered a Crick access pass, which if taken up will require some administrative processes (including security screening)
•    The nominated lab members will not be offered a Crick access pass, but will have free access to attend the seminars. If nominated lab members wish to visit the Crick outside of the seminars they may be registered as visitors (contact IG admin)
•    Applications will be reviewed by the scientific organisers of each Interest Group and the success of the application will be dependent on scientific fit, and the availability of associate membership spaces
•    Since Interest Group Membership necessarily entails the privilege and responsibility of hearing unpublished work in progress an application may be declined for reasons of conflict of interest
•    Since unpublished data is presented in the internal interest group series we will ask accepted associate members to keep content of seminars presented confidential
•    Full participation, including regular attendance and lab member presentations, will be required to maintain active membership

Please direct any queries about the call to IG-admin@crick.ac.uk