This week, we talk to Maria Leptin about her path to the head of the European Research Council  Maria claims she didn’t receive any formal mentoring advice, but rather absorbed and learnt along the wayAgainst the perceived wisdom, Maria warns against the advice to be continually networking. She advises to listen to what others say and then add your own thoughts.Maria is sure that if you really enjoy the stuff you're doing, then you will do it well and you'll get something out of it.She says that sabbatical breaks can be good to ‘put your brain to air a little bit’She says the ERC aims to  select the very best researchers across Europe, across all disciplines, and allow them to make wonderful discoveries. To attract ERC funding, organizations or countries or regions need to create an environment where researchers are happy to work and have good conditions.Maria makes a passionate plea for fundamental research and better access for science journalistsAfter a lie-in, Maria starts the day with a coffee and a cookie in the officeMaria likes our question “if you had $100 million or euros to spend in science, how would you spend it?” She uses it herself in interviews.She mentioned these institutions and researchers University of Bonn : https://www.uni-bonn.de/en/university/universityUniversity of Heidelberg : https://www.uni-heidelberg.de/enBasel Institute of Immunology : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_Institute_for_ImmunologyMRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology : https://www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology : https://www.mpg.de/151769/biology-tuebingenEuropean Molecular Biology Organization : https://www.embo.org/ European Research Council (ERC) : https://erc.europa.eu/homepageFritz Melchers : https://www.tbvi.eu/team/prof-georg-friedrich-fritz-melchers/ To find out more about Maria visit her websites or follow her on Twitter Website : https://erc.europa.eu/erc_member/maria-leptinWikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_LeptinORCID : https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7097-348XMaria on Twitter :https://twitter.com/mleptinYou want to support our work ? Buy us a coffee !  ==> https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lonelypipette To find out more about Renaud and Jonathan : Twitter : https://twitter.com/LePourpre LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/renaudpourpre/ Twitter : https://twitter.com/Epigenetique LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanweitzman/%20 More about the soundtrack : Music by Amaria - Lovely Swindler https://soundcloud.com/amariamusique/