Research Fellowship

FESSH Research Fellowship 2026

26. May – 06. June 2026

You need research – research needs you!

Research is one of the most important ways to improve quality and develop new techniques in handsurgery. With a new Research Fellowship, we want to stimulate, assist and foster scientific thinking and scientific working in hand surgery for all surgeons both young and established, who are members of the national societies represented by FESSH.

A one-week stay in a dedicated research department of a European hand surgical center is offered to create a forum for exchanging information, techniques and concepts in Europe and help spread research experience.

During the fellowship, you will interact with the different researchers and discuss their research projects. The FESSH Research Fellows will also be asked to present their experience and plans during the FESSH Congress in Basel.

The 2026 FESSH Research Fellowship will take place during the week preceding the FESSH Congress in Basel, offering two outstanding opportunities for clinical and scientific research experience at leading Swiss centers.

1. Fellowship in Zurich – Schulthess & Balgrist Clinics (26-29 May 2026)
This combined fellowship offers the possibility to visit two renowned institutions in Zurich:

• Schulthess Clinic: Clinical research on arthroplasty of the fingers and CMC I, with a strong scientific methodology and high research output.

• Balgrist University Hospital: Clinical research on patient-specific instrument (PSI) corrective osteotomies in forearm pathologies and motion analysis.

Program Overview Balgrist University Hospital and Schulthess Klinik, Zurich, Switzerland

Balgrist Program:

Day 1: 3D preoperative planning and 3D printing consists of an interdisciplinary team of researchers, engineers and surgeons. The goal is to improve the treatment of musculoskeletal diseases by the use of computer technology. In the morning, we will give insights into the planning and simulation of a 3D planned osteotomy of the distal radius and in the afternoon, the planned operation will be seen directly in the OR.

Day 2: Fellows will visit the 3D motion analysis lab at the University Hospital Zurich during an examination of a patient, followed by labelling and evaluation of the data in Matlab.

Schulthess Program:

Day 1: You will receive an overview of clinical research in orthopedic hand surgery, focusing on clinical studies involving implants. Today, the focus will be on study planning. You will receive useful tips and information on study planning and learn how to develop a study database using RedCap.

Day 2: You will gain an insight into statistical analysis using R, Stata and Python. Depending on your existing knowledge, you will learn how to program basic statistical tests.

(The exact timetable will be announced later.)

2. Fellowship in Basel– University Hospital Basel, Switzerland (26-29 May 2026)
At the Department of Biomedical Engineering, this fellowship focuses on tissue engineering, advanced 3D printing, and laser osteotomy at a high scientific level.

Focusing on hand surgery, one of the goals in the tissue engineering laboratory is to grow bone and cartilage for phalanx construction in symbrachydactyly. The laboratory working in 3D printing and laser osteotomy has the goal of further developing patient-specific implants used in corrective osteotomies, patient-specific printing of splints all the way through to 3D printing of scaphoid replacements. Depending on the interests of the candidate, this fellowship can also be broadened by clinical insights with out-patient-clinics as well as operative procedures.

Basel is a historic German-speaking city in the north-east of Switzerland, directly situated at the three-country point with Germany and France. It is traversed by the Rhine River, in which many people go swimming in the summertime. Basel is home to the oldest university of Switzerland, dating back to the fourteenth century, and the hometown of many historical and current figures, including Erasmus, Paracelsus and Roger Federer.

Both fellowships provide a unique opportunity to gain insight into innovative research and collaborate with leading experts in the field, just before the annual FESSH Congress in Basel.

FESSH Council will be supporting 2 fellows with a maximum of 1000€ /applicant. The fellowship is to be used for travel, accommodation and subsistence. Furthermore the winners of the fellowship will also receive admission to the FESSH Congress held in Basel from 03-06 June 2026  as well as to the educational afternoon organized on the congress’s preliminary day.

The one week stay will be just prior to the FESSH congress Basel 2026

The applicant should be a member of a national hand society which is a FESSH member.

Successful candidates will not be awarded the fellowship again within 5 years.

Applications should be sent through: application site

Application deadline: 15 February 2026

The following items are to be attached:

• 2 page curriculum vitae including attendance at FESSH events and research presentations and publications
• 1 letter of recommendation, which is from the Applicant’s head of training
• A 500 word personal statement. This should describe your commitment to hand surgery, your learning goals from the visit, your future ambitions and how the Fellowship will help you and how it will help hand surgery in Europe.
• Written confirmation if the travel does not occur for whatever reason the money is to be returned.

Two thirds of the Fellowship will be paid to the successful applicants prior to their travel.

The final third will be paid after the visit when the below requested 3 documents have been sent to the FESSH Office:

• Signed confirmation from the Head of the host centre that the visit took place
• An expense report with receipts on cost items the fund has been spent
• Report in illustrated poster style (.pdf or .ppt). This will be kept as a record in the FESSH archive.

WINNERS