The Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute (IJC) is a comprehensive cancer research center dedicated to conduct research and drive innovation in the epidemiological, preventive, clinical, translational, and basic aspects of leukaemia and other hematologic malignancies, with the final aim of finding a cure for these diseases. It was created in 2010, and since then has experienced an exponential growth.

The IJC is also part of the network of Excellence Research Centers of Catalonia (CERCA) and was accredited as a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence by the Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities in 2024. Since 2018, the Institute has also been accredited by the Scientific Foundation of the Spanish Association Against Cancer (FCAECC) Additionally, IJC is one of the centers integrated into the Institut de Recerca Germans Trias i Pujol (IGTP) accreditation as Accredited Health Research Institute (IIS) by the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII).

The IJC's main headquarters is located within the Can Ruti Biomedical Campus, alongside other leading biomedical institutions, providing direct access to cutting-edge scientific and technological facilities, as well as complementary community services. The IJC has six locations integrated into reference hospitals: Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol, Hospital Clínic, Hospital Sant Pau, Hospital Josep Trueta, Hospital del Mar and Hospital San Joan de Déu. This facilitates close collaboration between basic and clinical researchers, fostering translational research that integrates basic science with clinical practice in clinical settings.

JOSEP CARRERAS INSTITUTE SEVERO OCHOA DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS PROGRAM OVERVIEW

The Josep Carreras Institute Severo Ochoa Doctoral Fellowships Program offers 10 doctoral fellowships to train outstanding early-stage researchers in blood cancer research within a highly interdisciplinary and translational environment. The program is funded within the Severo Ochoa Excellence Program, granted in 2024 to the Institute. If you are interested in applying, please consult the full program guidelines at this link for detailed information.

Successful candidates will be recruited under a predoctoral employment contract in accordance with the applicable Spanish legal framework. Fellowships have a maximum duration of four years, and incorporation into IJC must take place no later than 1 January 2027, with the start date falling on the first day of the corresponding month.

Working Groups and illustrative examples of research directions

The Josep Carreras Institute is organizing its research environment around Working Groups (WGs) that bring together complementary expertise across basic, computational, translational, diagnostic, and clinical research in blood cancer.

The three Working Groups currently being launched are:

• Resistance to treatment and relapse (TP53, toxicity, metabolism, plasticity, progression mechanisms, relapse prediction)

• Immune mechanisms in disease and immunotherapy (tumor microenvironment, immune system, immune surveillance, immune evasion, GvHD/GvL)

• Origin of disease and predisposition (pre-malignant clones and interception, germline predisposition, genomic instability, inflammation and aging)

These Working Groups are designed to foster collaboration around major scientific and clinical challenges in blood cancer, creating a dynamic environment that will enable doctoral candidates to develop projects with strong scientific ambition, translational relevance, and access to diverse expertise, technologies, and research perspectives.

At the application stage, candidates will not apply to a specific doctoral project or to a specific Working Group. Applicants apply to the call as a whole and must submit a Motivation Letter addressing their interest in and suitability for the research directions represented across the IJC Working Groups.

The specific doctoral projects will be selected through the internal competitive call and will be jointly supervised by an IJC Group Leader acting as Principal Investigator and a co-supervisor with complementary expertise, providing doctoral candidates with an interdisciplinary training environment that bridges discovery-oriented research and clinically or diagnostically relevant expertise.

The final preselected projects will be communicated to the top-ranked candidates who are shortlisted after the first evaluation stage, in accordance with the procedure established in the call.

The examples below are therefore provided for contextual purposes only, to illustrate the type of research directions that may be represented across the Working Groups and that relate to major critical scientific and clinical challenges in the blood cancer field, such as:

• Origins of blood cancers: molecular and cellular mechanisms that drive the transition from pre-malignant states to leukemia, lymphoma, or myeloma.

• Clonal hematopoiesis and early cancer evolution: understanding how pre-malignant hematopoietic clones progress toward overt malignancy.

• Immune surveillance in pre-malignant hematologic conditions: how the immune system suppresses or enables malignant transformation.

• The immunological niche of early disease: defining how immune and stromal cells shape the emergence of leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma.

• Microenvironmental signals that promote malignant transformation in bone marrow and lymphoid tissues.

• Spatial mapping of pre-malignant and early malignant niches using spatial transcriptomics and multiplex imaging technologies.

• Immune–tumor ecosystem interactions in blood cancers: mechanisms that shape disease progression and treatment response.

• Mechanisms of immune escape during the transition from pre-malignant states to overt hematologic malignancy.

• Biology of minimal residual disease and early relapse in leukemias, lymphomas, and myelomas.

• Single-cell and spatial multi-omics approaches to define cellular ecosystems in blood cancers.

• Identification of early biomarkers for diagnosis and disease interception in hematologic malignancies.

• Role of inflammatory signaling and immune dysfunction in the development of blood cancers.

• Targeting pre-malignant niches to prevent progression to leukemia, lymphoma, or myeloma.

• Next-generation immunotherapies targeting tumor–immune interactions in hematologic malignancies.

• Precision medicine strategies integrating genomics, immune profiling, and spatial biology to improve diagnosis and treatment of blood cancers.

WHAT WE NEEED

We are looking for excellent and highly motivated early-stage researchers with a strong interest in blood cancer research and in pursuing doctoral training within an interdisciplinary and translational environment.

Ideal candidates will:

• demonstrate a strong academic record and scientific potential

• show clear interest in the research directions represented across the IJC Working Groups

• demonstrate curiosity, initiative, critical thinking, and willingness to develop new scientific and technical skills

• be able to communicate effectively and work collaboratively in an international research environment

• be interested in contributing to high-quality research with potential relevance for blood cancer biology and patient benefit

REQUIREMENTS

Candidates must also meet all the following eligibility requirements established in the Severo Ochoa call, including:

• Hold, or be in a position to hold before contract signature, a university degree granting access to a doctoral program in life sciences or related disciplines, and be formally admitted to a doctoral program at the time of contract formalization.

• Do not hold a doctoral degree

• Have not previously benefited from a predoctoral grant under the Spanish National R&D Plans

• Have not been employed under a predoctoral contract for more than 12 months prior to the application deadline

Applications that do not meet all the minimum eligibility criteria will be excluded from the evaluation process and will not be further assessed.

WHAT WE OFFER

Successful candidates will be recruited by the IJC under a four-year predoctoral employment contract. The fellowship covers employment costs and provides 6.860 € to support doctoral tuition fees and eligible research stays.

The salary conditions offered under this program are above the minimum applicable under the current legal and collective bargaining framework. The gross annual salary will be 22.000 € in year 1, 22.000 € in year 2, 25.000 € in year 3, and 30.000 € in year 4, plus the severance payment applicable at the end of the contract in accordance with the relevant legal framework.

These predoctoral fellowships are part of the Severo Ochoa Program CEX2023-001258-S, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. Severo Ochoa funds cover the eligible costs established in the CEX2023 call, as detailed in the program guidelines.

In addition, the Fundació Josep Carreras provides up to 30.000€ per fellowship in complementary co-funding to supplement employment costs not covered by the Severo Ochoa funds.

Fellowship holders must comply with the program conditions and reporting obligations, as detailed in the program guidelines. They are expected to:

• submit an individual training program within 15 working days of incorporation

• notify IJC of the defense and successful completion of the doctoral thesis

• provide the documentation required for scientific and financial monitoring

• acknowledge Severo Ochoa funding in publications, presentations, and dissemination outputs

• notify IJC immediately of interruptions, resignations, or other relevant incidents.

HOW TO APPLY

Please complete the application form below (“Apply for this job” section).

All documents must be submitted in English (or accompanied by an English translation) and uploaded in PDF format to the online platform by the application deadline.

The following documents are mandatory:

• Proof of degree completion or a provisional certificate demonstrating that degree requirements will be fulfilled before contract signature in life sciences or related disciplines. Eligible degrees include, but are not limited to biology, biochemistry, biotechnology, biomedical sciences, medicine, pharmacy, bioinformatics, computational biology, biomedical engineering or other disciplines relevant to blood cancer research.

• Academic transcripts specifying the final grade.

• CV (narrative CVs are preferred)

• Motivation Letter addressing the candidate’s interest and suitability for the scientific themes and research directions represented across the IJC Working Groups.

• Contact details of two referees (name, institution, position, and email address), to whom IJC will send a structured reference form with specific questions regarding the candidate’s academic profile and suitability.

• Any supporting documentation needed to substantiate achievements that the candidate wishes to have considered under the evaluation criteria set out in Section 2.2.2 (for example, evidence of research stays).

Achievements not adequately supported by the documentation submitted by the application deadline will not be considered in the evaluation, and no claims may be made subsequently in relation to merits or achievements for which supporting evidence was not provided.

SELECTION PROCESS

Stage 1 — Remote Criterion 1 evaluation

Criterion 1 assesses applicants’ academic and scientific-technical trajectory and is worth 50 points in total. It includes:

• Academic performance — up to 25 points

• Research experience and technical preparation — up to 15 points

• Additional curricular merits — up to 5 points

• Mobility and internationalization — up to 5 points

Candidates must score at least 30 out of 50 in Criterion 1 to be shortlisted. Approximately the top 30 ranked candidates proceed to the next stage.

Stage 2 — Interview and evaluation of Criterion 2

Shortlisted candidates participate in a virtual project interaction session, where Working Group Leads present the scientific scope of the WGs, project co-supervisors present the preselected doctoral projects, and candidates briefly introduce their academic background and research interests. Candidates then rank the projects according to their interest and project co-supervisors may indicate and rank the candidates they would wish to interview. This interaction session supports matching and interview allocation but does not itself constitute the formal evaluation interview.

Criterion 2 evaluates suitability for the research activities and is also worth 50 points. It includes:

• Technical fit — up to 15 points

• Motivation and potential — up to 25 points

• Understanding of the project — up to 10 points

Criterion 2 is assessed through the structured interview, the Motivation Letter and structured feedback from referees.

Candidates must score at least 37.5 out of 50 in Criterion 2 to remain eligible. o Call outline and detailed internal schedule for candidate’s evaluation: Final Score = Criterion 1 + Criterion 2.

Candidates are then ranked within each project, and only candidates scoring at least 80 out of 100 overall are eligible for funding. For each selected project, the fellowship is awarded to the highest-ranked eligible candidate within that project.

DEADLINE

Please submit your application by 3rd of May 2026.

WHO WE ARE?

What makes us different?

The mission of the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute is to conduct research and drive innovation in the epidemiological, preventive, clinical, translational, and basic aspects of cancer, with a special emphasis on Leukaemia and other malignant blood diseases, with the aim of finding a cure for these diseases.
The IJC’s vision is to be a world-class reference and excellent research center that contributes to the improvement of results, and the cure of patients affected by leukaemia and other malignant haemopathies, through innovation, sustainability, social responsibility, talent, and professional experience.

HR Excellence

In 2019, IJC was honored with the “Human Resources Excellence in Research Award” by the European Commission, recognizing the alignment of our human resources policies with the European Charter for Researchers and Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers. The Human Resources Strategy for Researchers (HRS4R) guides research centers of excellence in implementing and upholding these standards within their policies, emphasizing training, professional development, and mobility opportunities.
The IJC’s commitment to these values and principles strengthens our internal policies and ensures that our members have the optimal conditions and environment for their professional development.
The Board of Trustees is composed of representatives of the Generalitat de Catalunya (regional government), University of Barcelona, Autonomous University of Barcelona, the City of Badalona and the Jose Carreras International Leukaemia Foundation
The Catalan government provides hard money on an annual basis. The Jose Carreras International Leukaemia Foundation provides start-up funds, project funds as well as financial support for investments.
The JCI has an international scientific advisory board served by prominent researchers from US and Europe.
The IJC has been awarded ERC and other EU grants.

The IJC is an equal-opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or other legally protected characteristics.