ESO Fellowship Programme

The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere awards several postdoctoral fellowships each year in both Germany and Chile. The goal of these fellowships is to offer young scientists opportunities and facilities to enhance their research programmes by facilitating close contact between young astronomers and the activities and staff at one of the world's foremost observatories.

With ALMA becoming operational in a few years, ESO offers ALMA Fellowships to complement its regular fellowship programme. Applications by young astronomers with expertise in mm/sub-mm astronomy are encouraged.

All fellows have ample opportunities for scientific collaboration within ESO, both in Garching and Santiago. For more information about ESO's astronomical research activities please consult Science Activities page. The list of current ESO staff and fellows has information on their research interests. There are also (incomplete) lists of all former and current ESO fellows in Garching and former and current ESO fellows in Chile.

Additionally, the ESO Headquarter in Garching near Munich, Germany hosts the Space Telescope – European Coordinating Facility, and is situated in the immediate neighbourhood of the Max-Planck-Institutes for Astrophysics and for Extraterrestrial Physics and only a few kilometres away from the Observatory of the Ludwig-Maximilian University. ESO is also participating in the newly formed Excellence Cluster on the same campus. In Chile, fellows have the opportunity to collaborate with the rapidly expanding Chilean astronomical community in a growing partnership.

For the information about the application procedure and the required documents please see the ESO recruitment portal and Frequently Asked Questions page. The application deadline is every year on October 15.

ESO fellowship in Garching

In Garching, the fellowships start with an initial contract of one year followed by a two-year extension (3 years total).

While spending most of the time on their scientific research, the fellows are expected to contribute up to 25% of their time on support or development activities in the area of instrumentation, operations support, archive/virtual observatory, VLTI, ALMA, ELT, public affairs or science operations at the Observatory in Chile.

ESO fellowship in Chile

In Chile, the fellowships are granted for one year initially with an extension of three additional years (4 years total).

During the first three years, the fellows are assigned to one of the operations groups on Paranal, La Silla or APEX/ALMA. Fellows contribute to the operations at a level of 80 nights per year at the Observatory and 35 days per year at the Santiago Office. During the fourth year there is no functional work and several options are provided. The fellow may be hosted by a Chilean institution (and will thus have access to all telescopes in Chile via the Chilean observing time). Alternatively, she/he may choose to spend the fourth year either at ESO's Astronomy Centre in Santiago, or at the ESO Headquarters in Garching, or at any institute of astronomy/astrophysics in an ESO member state.