"The YEASTCELL ITN will train 11 Early Stage Researchers for productive careers as research scientists and leaders in the public or private yeast biotechnology sectors. Yeast biotechnology spans fundamental and applied research and is an area with an immediate need for highly trained researchers to advance knowledge and to develop new applications. The training consortium comprises 9 Public Sector (6 Universities, 3 Research Institutes) and 4 Private Sector (2 large companies and 2 SME) partners. A research training programme embracing the philosophy of “use-inspired fundamental research” has been designed to provide all 11 ESRs with interdisciplinary research training in both the public and private sectors. The research themes include yeast physiology and metabolism, metabolic engineering, mathematical modeling, genomics and bioinformatics, fermentation, synthetic biology and systems biology. In addition to training via collaborative research projects, ESRs will participate in courses at local and network levels to enhance their technical and academic skills. All ESRs will register for PhD degrees and will also take a separate postgraduate certificate course in commercialisation and entrepreneurship. Industry-led workshops, research secondments and site visits will provide specific training that prepares ESRs for research in the private sector. A comprehensive programme of advanced training in complementary topics and skills of relevance to both the public and private sectors is provided at the network level. As well as directly training 11 ESRs, the network training activities will provide opportunities for ~40 additional researchers and will promote long-term interactions between research groups at the partner Institutions. The major impact of YEASTCELL will be a cohort of highly-trained ESRs with excellent career prospects in the yeast biotechnology sector and a lasting European training and research collaboration between public and private sector partners."