CRI Irvington Postdoctoral Fellowship 2026 | $74,000 to $78,000 per Year for Cancer Immunology Researchers Worldwide (Deadline 1 September 2026)
The Cancer Research Institute (CRI) Irvington Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme is a fully funded three-year fellowship supporting outstanding early-career scientists conducting fundamental immunology or cancer immunology research at non-profit institutions worldwide. Fellows receive a stipend of $74,000 in year one, $76,000 in year two, and $78,000 in year three, plus a $5,000 annual institutional allowance for research supplies, conference travel, health insurance, or childcare. There are no citizenship or nationality restrictions; international applicants from any country are explicitly welcome. The fall 2026 application deadline is 1 September 2026. There is no application fee.
If you hold a doctoral degree and are conducting hypothesis-driven research in immunology or cancer immunology at a non-profit research institution anywhere in the world and you want three years of fully funded support, access to one of the most distinguished scientific networks in cancer research, and a stipend that rises annually to $78,000 the CRI Irvington Postdoctoral Fellowship is the most prestigious and best-compensated postdoctoral award in cancer immunology available globally, and its fall 2026 deadline is open right now. Use Our Free Scholarship Calculator
Key Details at a Glance
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Fellowship | CRI Irvington Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme |
| Funder | Cancer Research Institute (CRI) |
| Duration | 3 years |
| Year 1 Stipend | $74,000 |
| Year 2 Stipend | $76,000 |
| Year 3 Stipend | $78,000 |
| Institutional Allowance | $5,000 per year (to host institution) |
| Eligible Host Institutions | Non-profit institutions in the USA or internationally |
| Citizenship Restrictions | None , open to any nationality |
| Postdoctoral Experience Limit | Maximum 5 years of relevant postdoctoral experience |
| Fall 2026 Deadline | 1 September 2026 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time |
| Spring 2027 Deadline | 1 March 2027 |
| Results Notification | Within 10 to 12 weeks of deadline |
| Application Fee | None |
| Official Portal | Click Here |
What Is the CRI Irvington Postdoctoral Fellowship?
The Cancer Research Institute was founded in 1953 and is the world’s leading non-profit organisation dedicated to harnessing the power of the immune system to conquer cancer. CRI-funded scientists have been central to the development of every breakthrough in cancer immunotherapy over the past seven decades, from the foundational discovery of tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes to checkpoint blockade therapy, CAR-T cell engineering, and cancer vaccine platforms now in clinical trials globally.
The Irvington Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme is CRI’s flagship early-career training award, named for the town in New York where CRI was founded. Since its establishment, the programme has supported hundreds of postdoctoral scientists at institutions across the United States and internationally. CRI Irvington alumni have gone on to faculty positions at leading research universities, leadership roles in biotech and pharma, and positions at the forefront of cancer immunotherapy development.
The fellowship is designed for one specific purpose: to fund the most talented early-career scientists in immunology and cancer immunology during the postdoctoral years when they are developing the independent research skills, technical expertise, and scientific vision that will define their careers. CRI’s Scientific Advisory Council, drawn from Nobel Laureates, National Academy members, and leaders in oncology and immunology, reviews every application. Selection at this level is a significant scientific credential.
What the Fellowship Covers
The CRI Irvington Fellowship provides a comprehensive three-year financial package structured to give fellows the security to pursue ambitious, long-term scientific work without financial distraction.
Stipend of $74,000, $76,000, and $78,000 in years one through three. The stipend rises annually, rewarding fellows who remain in the programme and reflecting the increasing value of their scientific expertise as the fellowship progresses. Payments are made monthly in US currency directly to the host institution, which then disburses the stipend to the fellow as salary or wages depending on the institution’s employment structure.
Annual $5,000 institutional allowance. Paid to the host institution and available for use at the sponsor’s discretion, meaning the supervising faculty member’s discretion. This allowance covers research supplies, travel to scientific conferences, health insurance contributions, and childcare. The allowance cannot be used for administrative overhead, and CRI explicitly prohibits overhead charges on either the stipend or the allowance.
Conference support. CRI provides dedicated support for fellows to attend the CRI Annual International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference (CICON), one of the most important annual gatherings in the cancer immunotherapy field. Fellows also receive access to CRI’s Bioinformatics Bootcamp, a specialised training resource of growing importance as computational approaches become central to immunology research.
Professional network access. All CRI Irvington fellows join CRI’s global scientific community, connecting with alumni who are now faculty at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, UCL, the Karolinska, and major research institutions worldwide, as well as with scientists at CRI-funded institutions and the members of CRI’s Scientific Advisory Council.
Eligible Research Areas
The CRI Irvington Fellowship funds research in fundamental immunology and cancer immunology. Eligible projects must fall within the broad field of immunology with direct relevance to the cancer problem. CRI is explicit that it seeks hypothesis-driven, mechanistic research, not descriptive studies, not clinical trials, and not research that is primarily translational without a strong basic science component.
Research themes that consistently produce strong CRI Irvington applications include the following areas.
Tumour microenvironment biology examines how the cellular and molecular environment within tumours shapes immune responses including the roles of tumour-associated macrophages, regulatory T cells, dendritic cells, natural killer cells, and cancer-associated fibroblasts in promoting immune evasion.
Checkpoint biology and immunotherapy mechanisms address the molecular mechanisms of checkpoint pathways — PD-1/PD-L1, CTLA-4, TIM-3, LAG-3, and others and the development of approaches to overcome checkpoint-mediated immune suppression in cancer.
T cell biology in cancer contexts covers T cell receptor signalling, T cell exhaustion, memory formation, and the development of strategies to enhance T cell-mediated antitumour immunity.
Cancer vaccines and antigen presentation examines the mechanisms by which cancer antigens are processed and presented to the immune system, and the development of vaccine approaches that elicit or enhance tumour-specific immune responses.
Innate immunity and cancer studies the roles of innate immune cells and pathways including the cGAS-STING pathway, innate sensing of tumour-derived nucleic acids, and natural killer cell biology — in cancer surveillance and response to immunotherapy.
Microbiome and immunity in cancer investigates the relationships between the gut and tumour microbiomes and systemic and local immune responses to cancer and cancer therapy.
CAR-T cells and adoptive cell therapies covers the development and optimisation of engineered cell therapy approaches, including CAR-T, CAR-NK, and TCR-T cell therapies.
Eligibility Requirements
Doctoral degree. You must hold a doctoral degree, a PhD, MD, MD-PhD, or equivalent research doctorate by the date the fellowship is activated. Candidates who are still completing their doctoral programme may apply, provided they will have conferred their degree before the fellowship start date.
Postdoctoral experience limit. You must have no more than five years of relevant postdoctoral experience at the time of the award. Applicants with five or more years of postdoctoral experience are not eligible. For MD applicants, years spent in medical residency are excluded from this calculation.
A note on time in the sponsor’s laboratory. CRI rarely funds fellows who have already spent three or more years in the laboratory of their proposed sponsor. If you have been in your current lab for three or more years, you must provide a strong justification in your application for why the fellowship should be held in the same laboratory rather than a new one.
Sponsor requirement. You must conduct your proposed research under the supervision of a sponsor — a faculty member who holds a formal academic appointment at the level of assistant professor or above at a non-profit institution. The sponsor must have expertise in immunology or cancer immunology and must provide a letter of support. The sponsor’s laboratory and institutional environment are evaluated as part of your application.
Host institution. The research must be conducted at a non-profit institution. This includes universities, research institutes, hospitals, and other non-profit research organisations in the United States or internationally. For-profit companies are not eligible host institutions, though collaborations with for-profit entities are permitted.
No citizenship restriction. CRI Irvington is explicitly open to researchers of any nationality from any country. This is one of the programme’s most important features for Global South applicants and makes it meaningfully different from many US government-funded postdoctoral awards that restrict eligibility to US citizens or permanent residents.
The Application Process
Applications are submitted through CRI’s online application portal. There are two deadlines per year — 1 March and 1 September — and applicants who are unsuccessful in one round may resubmit in a subsequent round, provided the resubmission reflects genuine scientific progress.
Step 1: Identify a sponsor. Before beginning your application, identify and confirm a sponsor — a faculty member with a formal academic appointment in immunology or cancer immunology at a non-profit institution who agrees to supervise your proposed research and provide a letter of support. The sponsor is evaluated as part of your application. The quality of the training environment, the sponsor’s track record, and the fit between your proposed project and the sponsor’s expertise all matter.
Step 2: Develop your research proposal. The core of the CRI Irvington application is the research proposal. CRI evaluates proposals for scientific quality, originality, mechanistic depth, and relevance to the cancer immunology problem. The proposal should present a clear hypothesis, specific aims, a feasible experimental approach, and an explanation of how the proposed research will advance understanding of the immune system’s role in cancer. Applications that are merely descriptive or that lack mechanistic grounding are not competitive.
Step 3: Prepare all application materials. A complete application includes the research proposal, a biographical sketch following CRI’s formatting requirements, a letter of support from your sponsor, a letter of reference from your doctoral supervisor, and one additional letter of reference from a scientist who knows your work. All files must comply with CRI’s formatting rules and page limits. Incomplete applications or those exceeding limits are not reviewed.
Step 4: Submit through CRI’s portal before 1 September 2026. The deadline is 1 September 2026 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time. Applications submitted after this time are not accepted except in cases of documented medical or family emergency. Awards can be activated from four months after the deadline but no later than one year following the deadline, and they activate on the first of the month.
Official Application Portal: Click Here
CRI Irvington and the Global South Research Community
The explicit absence of citizenship restrictions in the CRI Irvington Fellowship makes it one of the few major American scientific funding programmes genuinely accessible to researchers from the Global South. Cancer immunology research with direct relevance to the Global South, including cancers with higher incidence in low and middle-income countries, immune responses in the context of co-infections common in the Global South, and the immunobiology of cancers linked to infectious agents, is precisely the kind of scientifically important and often underrepresented research that CRI’s evaluation criteria can support.
The fellowship can be held at non-profit institutions internationally, meaning a researcher from India, Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil, or any other country can hold a CRI Irvington fellowship at an institution in their home country, provided the host institution is non-profit, and the sponsor meets the eligibility requirements. This is an important feature: you do not need to relocate to the United States to hold a CRI Irvington fellowship.
For researchers who are based at US institutions on visas, the fellowship is fully accessible. Visa status does not affect eligibility; only nationality does, and there are no nationality restrictions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the CRI Irvington Fellowship open to researchers from India, Nigeria, Brazil, or other Global South countries?
Yes. There are no citizenship or nationality restrictions. The fellowship is explicitly open to international applicants from any country. Research can be conducted at eligible non-profit institutions in the USA or internationally, meaning Global South researchers can hold this fellowship at institutions in their home countries.
Can I hold the fellowship at an institution outside the United States?
Yes. The host institution must be a non-profit organisation but can be located in the United States or internationally. Universities, research institutes, and hospitals outside the US are eligible host institutions provided they meet CRI’s requirements.
What is the fall 2026 deadline and when will results be announced?
The fall 2026 deadline is 1 September 2026 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time. CRI notifies applicants of fellowship committee decisions within approximately 10 to 12 weeks of the deadline, meaning results for the September 2026 round would be expected in November or December 2026. Awards can be activated from four months after the deadline.
Can I apply if I have more than 5 years of postdoctoral experience?
No. Applicants with five or more years of relevant postdoctoral experience are not eligible. For MD applicants, years spent in medical residency are excluded from this calculation.
Can I reapply if my application is unsuccessful?
Yes. Applicants are permitted to resubmit their application at a subsequent deadline, provided the resubmission reflects genuine scientific progress. Changes to the application should be addressed within the subsequent submission and explained in the cover materials.
Is the $5,000 institutional allowance paid to the fellow directly?
No. The $5,000 annual institutional allowance is paid to the host institution for use at the sponsor’s discretion to cover the fellow’s research supplies, conference travel, health insurance contributions, and childcare costs. The fellow does not receive this amount directly, but it supports the costs associated with the fellow’s research and professional development.
Final Checklist Before You Apply
- Confirm you hold a doctoral degree or will have conferred one before the fellowship activation date
- Confirm you have fewer than five years of relevant postdoctoral experience
- Identify and confirm a sponsor with a formal academic appointment in immunology or cancer immunology at a non-profit institution
- Confirm your proposed host institution is a non-profit organisation
- Develop a hypothesis-driven, mechanistic research proposal in immunology or cancer immunology
- Arrange letters of support from your sponsor, your doctoral supervisor, and one additional scientific reference
- Ensure all documents comply with CRI’s formatting requirements and page limits
- Submit your complete application before 1 September 2026 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time
- Apply at: cancerresearch.org/cri-irvington-postdoctoral-fellowship
Last updated: June 2026. Stipend amounts are based on CRI’s published rates effective from March 2023 and are subject to review. Always verify current stipend figures, application requirements, and deadline dates on the official Cancer Research Institute website at cancerresearch.org before applying. Use Our Free Scholarship Calculator
