Georgi Hranov, Bulgaria

When I finally arrived in Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom, my initial enthusiasm had been already badly bruised, what with the endless translations, communications, negotiations, permissions and approvals, synchronizations and preparations. Moreover, after trying a long string of agencies and individuals, I had finally procured lodgings entirely not to my liking and a flight schedule bringing me in the anywhere of somewhere, and in the middle of the night!
 
The next day the town proved to be a small cosy and green place leading a quiet and closed-in life.
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in which I was supposed to spend most of the following six months was a medium-size institution (according to our Bulgarian urban standards) spread over three wings and some additional small pavilions. I was met at the Mental Health Unit by my mentor Professor Naomi Fineberg and her gentle kindness somehow managed to melt the grudges and disappointments that had amassed during the previous months. She introduced me to the members of her team and I felt it was not going to be tough after all. Well that was a mistake once again! No matter how easygoing and considerate she is as a person, Naomi Fineberg proved to be a strict and demanding supervisor entirely at ease in her field of expertise and expecting prompt adaptation and quick to get to full-throttle work: all kinds of team meetings and discussions, intensive training sessions on the implementation and evaluation of large batteries of clinical neuropsychological and self-assessment scales, literature searches and unexpected preparation of a whole paper-load for the Ethics Committee’s appraisal. When the final favourable approval was in our hands and the first results from the pilot study were on the screen, it was already Christmas! Believe it or not, three and a half months had passed without any time to get around and to even begin complaining!

The next three months were filled with ceaseless work: evaluating patients and relatives, arranging exploratory visits, participating in widely differing meetings and discussions, including communal work, forensic assessments, and sponsor and co-worker- arrangements. Finally, I felt as if I had always been part of this creative and tireless network managing one of the most hard-to-treat major mental diseases: obsessive-compulsive disorder.
 
When the time for departure came I understood that there was still more to accomplish and that a further effort was needed, so I came back for a month on my own and was once again met by my mentor with the same kindness and unrelenting drive to perfection. We managed to wrap up most of our work and the preliminary results proved to be worthy of being presented at a major international scientific event: the International WPA Congress in Florence. Our results give a strong signal in support of the initial hypotheses underlining the unique status of the OCD+tics patient group.
 
Now the final paper is underway and I am expecting collaborative projects in the near future. My personal professional confidence is now much greater too. All in all, this has been a priceless experience which was worth all the effort and hardship!

Eduard Maron, Estonia

The ECNP Research Grant for Young Scientists gave me a unique opportunity to visit the Psychopharmacology Unit at Bristol University in the United Kingdom, where I joined the research groups of David Nutt for eight months from September 2008.
 
The grant period was a very important experience for me, considering the outcomes I had from it. I learned various things in different medical disciplines, particularly expanding my knowledge of the methods of epigenetic investigation in animals under the supervision of Hans Reul and David Nutt, and being involved also in clinical studies of anxiety disorder models under the supervision of David Nutt and Jayne Bailey. These different aspects helped me to understand better the research niceties of the pre-clinical field, which are necessary for scientists like me, who mostly work in the clinical area.
On the other hand, after my arrival in Bristol I was immediately drawn into the scientific atmosphere of the department of David Nutt and this had a dramatic impact on my future plans. In parallel to my research job in Bristol, I had opportunities for selfeducation and for planning the next steps of my professional development. In November 2008 Imperial College London announced the Junior Research Fellowship Award for the first time and which stimulated me to apply. By the end of my ECNP Research Grant period in Bristol, I received a letter from the Imperial College confirming that the Selection Committee supported my nomination for the fellowship. At the current time, I am starting a pharmaco-MRI project at Imperial College under the guidance of the teams of Paul Matthews and David Nutt.
 
The importance of the fellowship for me is difficult to overrate considering that psychiatric neuroimaging is one of the main research areas related to my scientific career. However, I absolutely realise that a fellowship in Imperial College, London, would probably never have been possible for me without the important research experience and educational activity I have had in Bristol, provided through the ECNP Research Grant. I hope this collaborative achievement is sufficient and a heavily weighted argument in favour of ECNP’s policy to support young scientists. Based on personal experience, I strongly recommend young European  scientists to consider applying for an ECNP Research Grant, and I just want to remind them that the objective of this grant is to provide committed young scientists the possibility to expand their knowledge and skills by working on international scientific projects. Undoubtedly, this is a unique opportunity for awardees, which gives freedom to focus on their own research and which may significantly help them to contribute their following development and career.

I would like to sincerely thank ECNP and the Award Jury for their kind support and I wish success to the next ECNP Research Grant nominees. Significantly, one of my current colleagues in Imperial College, Alessandro Colasanti, is a winner of the 2009 ECNP Research Grant for Young Scientists!