As 2025 draws to a close, we thank alumni for their continued connection to EMBL. This year brought leadership transitions, with Peer Bork and Ewan Birney jointly leading EMBL in the interim as the organisation prepared for its next Director General, Tony Hyman.

EMBL’s mission remained clear: to advance life sciences in Europe in an open and collaborative way, building bridges across communities, countries and disciplines. Alumni engagement has been key to our ongoing delivery of that mission.

Career development and networking
Alumni continued to engage widely with EMBL courses, conferences and community events, both in person and online. This year, many former staff joined us at the 2025 Kafatos Lecture in Trondheim in March, the EMBL Grenoble 50th anniversary celebrations in July, and the Anne Ephrussi Symposium in Heidelberg in September, among other gatherings.

Volunteering
Alumni expertise enriched these gatherings as speakers, facilitators and organisers. Alumni also played an active role behind the scenes – for example, by supporting committee work, offering materials to the EMBL Archive, and providing quotes for EMBL’s web pages and publications. We marked five years of alumni mentorship, and expanded the Alumni Chats interview series across YouTube and podcast platforms. The EMBL Alumni Association Board continued to offer invaluable leadership and representation for the community.

Giving
We are grateful to those who supported philanthropic initiatives this year. Thanks to alumni generosity, the Kafatos Lectures received dedicated support, including a generous personal contribution. Other alumni contributed to EMBL’s outreach and education activities – helping strengthen EMBL’s ability to connect the public, policymakers and the scientific community with discoveries that matter.

Championing
Alumni have continued to champion EMBL far beyond our sites. In 2025, we launched the EMBL Alumni LinkedIn page and a new monthly EMBL news digest, keeping the community informed and celebrating alumni driving progress across research, innovation, leadership, and public engagement. By keeping their details up to date and staying engaged, alumni help us track their impact and build a stronger global EMBL community.

As we look ahead, we also take a moment to honour members of our community who passed away this year. We are grateful for their lasting contributions to science, to EMBL and to our alumni community, and we remember them fondly.

Turning to 2026, we look forward to keeping our community informed and involved as EMBL shapes its next Scientific Programme, and we greatly appreciate continued alumni support and engagement with EMBL’s future.