This collection covers the activities of the Courses and Workshops department at EMBO from 1966-2024.

The ”Course Committee” series is mostly comprised of agendas, minutes, and correspondence and runs from 1966-2024. Paper records for the years up to 2010 are stored in the archive and subsequent years are stored as digital files.



The series concerning courses, workshops, and other events contain correspondence, funding applications, programs, lists of participants, coursebooks, financial and scientific reports, survey analyses, and posters. These materials run from 1972-2014, although references to events outside of this timeframe may be found in the Course Committee files.

The collection is comprised almost entirely of paper materials, but occasionally contain other materials such as floppy disks, CD-ROMS, and t shirts.

This collection comprises materials relating to the establishment of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) by the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO).

Materials related to the services offered by EMBO as an advisory and review body to the EMBC Member States between 1994-2005. It carried out reviews of several national research programmes. In each case, it appointed an expert panel of EMBO Members to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the individual life sciences programmes and delivered a report to the national research councils or ministries.

Materials related to the EBNIC program proposed and coordinated by EMBO from 1984-2001.

Towards the end of the 90s, EMBO decided to expand the geographical range of its activities, as a means of developing relationships between European scientists and their peers outside of the EMBO area. With China’s inclusion as a partner in the development of the 5th European Framework Programme, and with what the EMBO council considered to be EMBO’s insufficient attention to the area of Biotechnology, EMBO decided to initiate the EBNIC program. EBNIC began its operations in February 1998, funded by the EU-INCO (international cooperation program). Initially funded for 3 years, it represented an effort to promote wider interest among European academic and industrial biotechnologists in working with their Chinese counterparts.

Both a European and Chinese management team were established to oversee activities and define the mission of the program. Frank Gannon acted as coordinator. A start-up meeting of the management group was held in mid-February 1998 in Brussels, during which the date, venue, and draft agenda for the first annual meeting of the European Node were agreed upon during this meeting. The topics to concentrate on were chosen based on the relevant findings of the DGXII representatives in the mission that visited China in preparation of the EU-China Science & Technology Cooperation Agreement established in 1998.

The first general meeting of EBNIC was held on 27th April 1998 in Heidelberg. The results of this meeting were the enlargement of the management group, and the selection of topics for joint workshops.

At a later meeting, on the 15th of June 1998 in Beijing, these topics were finalized, and workshops on “Diagnostics today and tomorrow” and “host-pathogen interactions” were held in November 1998 in China and January 1999 in Italy, respectively.

Subsequent workshops, lectures, and scientific visits were organized under EBNIC’s program, a website hosting a database of potential collaborators was established, and annual meetings of interested European scientists and industries were held.

At the end of the 3-year program, funding for EBNIC-2, intended to be EBNIC’s successor, was not accepted and the program was terminated. However, EMBO subsequently set up its World Programme (now Global Activities), to continue its work building collaboration between European scientists and external partners.

The ”Fellowship Committee” series is comprised of agendas, minutes, and correspondence regarding Fund Committee meetings from 1966-1996, and the Fellowship Committee from 1996- 2024. Paper records for the years up to 2016 are stored in the physical archive and subsequent years are stored as digital files on the EMBO3 server.

The “Fellows Meeting” series is comprised of correspondence, programs, abstract books, posters, and other materials regarding the organization, coordination, and running of Fellows Meetings from the years 1997-2024. Files from 2019-2024 are stored digitally on the EMBO3 server.

Working documents related to the Fellowship Department are stored in the Intermediate Archive for records management purposes.

This collection comprises materials relating to the defunct Research Awards scheme, which was intended to become a special project of the EMBC. It was superseded by the establishment of the ERC, as EMBO did not want to complete with the initiative.

It contains correspondence, press releases, reports, and working group documents.

This collection comprises materials relating to the Sectoral Meetings held by EMBO. It contains correspondence, and meeting documents such as programmes, participant lists, and reports.

Due to many scientists having primary loyalty to a subsection of molecular biology and therefore a secondary loyalty to molecular biology as a whole, some scientists had the feeling EMBO was not particularly important to their specific sector. The EMBO Council felt that establishing sectoral meetings would be a good way to ensure that the organisation did not miss out on new developments within different areas of the life sciences, and to build up contacts within these areas. It therefore approved meetings with scientists from Neurobiology and Immunology to discuss their impact on society, with a view to holding more meetings on other subsections of the life sciences in the future.

This collection comprises materials relating to the annual EMBO Meeting, held between 2009-2016. It contains abstract books, lists of attendees, correspondence, posters, programmes, and administrative and organisational documentation related to the meetings.