Established in 2025, the Early Career Researcher Award recognises of outstanding and promising early career research in the fields of TB and lung health.
The goal of this award is to encourage and reward Early Career Researchers in the fields of tuberculosis and lung health. The shortlisted candidates will be invited to provide a 10 minute presentation at a dedicated session during the Union World Conference on Lung Health.
The award will be presented annually at the Union World Conference on Lung Health and consists of:
- A full Union Conference scholarship.
- Open access fee support for publication of an original article in the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease.
- A certificate.
Eligibility criteria
- Within 10 years of completion of PhD, fellowship or equivalent.
- The abstract presenter has made a major contribution to the design, execution, analysis and interpretation of body of work being presented (to be verified by senior author or the applicant’s supervisor).
- The project is completed at the time of submission of the abstract.
Selection criteria
The award will be administered by The Union. The winner will be selected by a panel of leading experts. The presenters will be assessed on:
- Presented work represents:
- High quality research of any type that is relevant to tuberculosis and/or lung health (quality of the research to be judged by the norms for the relevant type of research), AND
- Research has high level of actual or potential for impact on the field (including on future research, policy and/or practice).
- Both the written abstract and the oral presentation in the designated session are of high quality.
- Presenter responds to questions in the session in a manner that demonstrates good understanding of the topic and related matters.
Recipients
2025: Dr Jayne Ellis is an Infectious Diseases and Microbiology clinician and a clinical lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who presented ‘TB and cytomegalovirus co-pathogenicity amongst adults with cryptococcal meningitis: A prospective cohort study’.
The Early Career Researcher Award 2025 was supported by Johnson & Johnson.