RIKEN NEWS: The Appeal of the ECL Program in Nurturing Early-Career Researchers

An interview with Leo Speidel (RIKEN ECL Research Unit Leader, Mathematical Genomics RIKEN ECL Research Unit) has been featured in the Topics section, as part of the Close-up RIKEN 2025 series on RIKEN’s research introduction page. A video interview is also available alongside the article.

The RIKEN Early Career Leaders (ECL) Program was launched in 2023 to provide more substantial support for early-career researchers. Building on and expanding the previous RIKEN Hakubi Program, the ECL Program enables researchers to pursue agile and flexible research. In addition to appointing Team Leaders (equivalent to department heads or young professors at universities), the program has introduced the position of Unit Leader (equivalent to section heads or associate professors/lecturers at universities) to support outstanding young researchers with limited experience. These Unit Leaders are provided with a highly mobile and independent research environment at their host research centers.

We spoke with Dr. Leo Speidel, the RIKEN ECL Research Unit Leader of the Mathematical Genomics RIKEN ECL Research Unit, Mathematical Science Core Division, at the Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences Program (iTHEMS), who is part of the program's first cohort. He is working to uncover human evolution and history through the study of DNA mutations, and he shared with us the appeal of the ECL Program.

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