Modern technology and globalization dramatically changed our perception of how research in psychiatry should be done. On one hand, research topics in modern psychiatry considerably broadened over the years, and opportunities for collaboration as well as dissemination of results dramatically increased. On the other hand, research in psychiatry has become highly demanding, requiring the use of the most modern methodologies, large numbers of participants and fast publications of the results in highly competitive journals. Inevitably, it has become very costly in terms of time, money and human resources.

These changes brought more opportunities for research to the new generations of European early career psychiatrists. Nevertheless, they also increased the inequality in opportunities for research among them, due to relative centralization of the most “exclusive” psychiatric research sites. Indeed, the majority of European early career psychiatrists miss real opportunities to get involved in research due to a lack of mentorship, psychiatric research groups and research facilities in their countries.

Within this scenario, choosing the right kind of research for early career psychiatrists might be confusing and somewhat discouraging. To support the involvement of young colleagues in research, the Early Career Psychiatrists Committee has formed the Task Force on Research. We will present several projects run by our task force, each relying on a different approach of research in psychiatry. We think that the proposed approaches would be useful for early career psychiatrists, since they take into account both the strengths and limitations inherent to the role/position of early career psychiatrists.