YRI stands for Young Researchers Institute, the organization that runs the YRI Fellowship. The YRI Fellowship pairs each student one-on-one with a PhD mentor, turns a question the student cares about into original research, and takes that research to a published paper in venues such as IEEE, Springer and Elsevier.

If you searched "YRI" and landed here, you are probably a parent or a student looking at research programs. This page explains the name, what the Fellowship does, what it costs, and how to tell the YRI Fellowship apart from other organizations that use the same three letters.

YRI: the name, in one line

The full legal name is Young Researchers Institute LLC, doing business as YRI Fellowship. That wording comes straight from the site's privacy policy. The press kit uses the same expansion in its official description: "The YRI Fellowship (Young Researchers Institute) is a research mentorship program."

In everyday use, families and students say "YRI" or "the YRI Fellowship," and both mean the same thing. As the What Is YRI page puts it, YRI is the short name and the YRI Fellowship is the full name.

So when you see any of these, they all point to one place, yriscience.com:

  • YRI
  • YRI Fellowship
  • Young Researchers Institute

What the YRI Fellowship is

The YRI Fellowship is a research mentorship program. A student is matched with their own PhD mentor, works with that mentor one-on-one every week, and finishes with a first-author paper submitted to a peer-reviewed journal or conference.

Most students start with no research experience at all. They do not need a research idea, perfect grades or a lab. The mentor helps find the question, then walks the student through every step of the research. An editing team works on every draft. A publishing team handles the submission. If the journal asks for changes after the ten weeks, the mentor keeps helping, free, until the paper is published.

That end-to-end design is why 87% of Fellows publish and 73% place at science competitions.

Who YRI is for

YRI works with curious students from middle school up, in any field. Mentors cover AI and machine learning, biology and medicine, physics and engineering, chemistry and the environment, economics and psychology, and the humanities. More than 1,000 students from 50+ countries have worked with YRI, drawing on a network of 1,000+ PhD mentors.

What a student finishes with

Every Fellow works toward three outcomes:

  1. A published paper. Original research with the student's name first, in a journal or conference anyone can look up.
  2. A science fair entry. The same research taken to ISEF, JSHS and regional fairs, with the poster and judge questions practiced.
  3. A story they can tell. Ten weeks of 1:1 work means they can explain every line of it in a college essay or interview.

You can see the papers and the students behind them on Published Work and in Student Stories.

The two YRI programs

YRI runs two programs. Most families start with the first.

The YRI Research Fellowship

  • 10 weeks of unlimited 1:1 sessions with a PhD mentor
  • $2,997, or 3 payments of $999
  • One first-author paper, submitted to venues such as IEEE and Springer
  • ISEF, JSHS and regional fair preparation
  • Free help until the paper is published

Full details are on the Fellowship page, and the week-by-week plan is in our 10-week timeline guide.

The YRI Top 1% Profile

  • 6 to 9 months, built for Ivy League admissions
  • $9,997, or 3 payments of $3,333
  • 2 to 3 published papers in one field, a patent with the student's name on it, a company or nonprofit, and the full competition season
  • 8 families a year, with the founder working with each family personally

Read more on the Top 1% Profile page or in our guide to the YRI Top 1% Profile.

What YRI Fellows have achieved

The record is public, and every published paper links to the publisher's own index so anyone can check it. A few results from the site:

  • Sadaf S. came in with no research experience, published first author at an IEEE conference, and was admitted to Brown and Johns Hopkins.
  • Mubashir S. started with zero research experience and qualified for Regeneron ISEF 2026.
  • Suriya D. had research accepted at IEEE EMBC 2026 as a 9th grader.
  • Aditya S. won Best Oral Presentation at an IEEE conference in Tokyo.

Across the program, Fellows have been admitted to Brown, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Caltech and Harvard.

YRI has also been covered by Entrepreneur, Forbes India, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, SF Weekly and Investing.com. Links to each article are on the press page.

Who runs YRI

YRI was founded by Ishan Jain, a Regeneron ISEF finalist and Conrad Challenge top-five finisher who has published in JAMA Cardiology and authored ten peer-reviewed papers presented at IEEE, ACM and Stanford. YRI is based in San Francisco and Bangalore. Behind every Fellow is a full-time team of PhD mentors, research writers and journal submission specialists. More on the About YRI page and in our post on the YRI founder.

Not to be confused with

Several unrelated organizations also use the initials "YRI." They do good work in their own fields and have no connection to the YRI Fellowship. If you are looking for one of them, here is how to tell them apart.

NameWhat it isWebsite
YRI Fellowship (Young Researchers Institute)Research mentorship program: 1:1 PhD mentors, published papers, science fair preparationyriscience.com
Youth Research Inc.A research, program and policy nonprofit in Delmar, New York, that supports the New York State Office of Children and Family Services and its partnersyriny.org
Youth Readiness InterventionA group mental health intervention for young people, developed by Boston College researchers and first studied in Sierra Leonebc.edu
Youth Resiliency InstituteA Baltimore, Maryland organization focused on mentoring, training and building community advocates across generationsyouthresiliencyinstitute.org

A simple rule: if the page is about student research, PhD mentors, published papers or science fairs, and the address is yriscience.com, it is the YRI Fellowship. Our official channels include Instagram at @yriscience and YouTube at @YRIFellowship.

How to start with YRI

Applying is simple and free:

  1. Apply online. The form takes about 10 minutes. No essays, no fee.
  2. Get a decision within 48 hours. A person reads every application.
  3. Get matched. Accepted students are paired with a PhD mentor in their field.
  4. Pay only after acceptance. Tuition is settled once your child is accepted and you decide to go ahead. Scholarships are decided case by case.

For a step-by-step walkthrough, see how to apply to the YRI Fellowship. If you want to check the program first, our guide to whether YRI is legit lists what you can verify yourself in fifteen minutes.

Frequently asked questions

What does YRI stand for?

YRI stands for Young Researchers Institute. The organization's legal name is Young Researchers Institute LLC, and it does business as the YRI Fellowship.

Is YRI the same as the YRI Fellowship?

Yes. YRI is the short name and the YRI Fellowship is the full name. Both refer to the research mentorship program at yriscience.com.

What does the YRI Fellowship do?

It pairs students one-on-one with PhD mentors for ten weeks, guides them through original research, edits every draft, and submits the paper to peer-reviewed venues such as IEEE, Springer and Elsevier. 87% of Fellows publish.

Is YRI connected to Youth Research Inc. or the Youth Readiness Intervention?

No. Youth Research Inc. is a New York nonprofit, the Youth Readiness Intervention is a Boston College mental health program, and the Youth Resiliency Institute is a Baltimore organization. None of them is affiliated with the YRI Fellowship.

How much does YRI cost?

The Research Fellowship is $2,997, or 3 payments of $999. The Top 1% Profile is $9,997, or 3 payments of $3,333. See our full YRI Fellowship cost guide or the pricing page.

Does my child need research experience?

No. Most Fellows start with none. The first weeks are spent with the mentor finding the right question.

Start your child's first published paper

YRI exists so that any serious student can do what usually takes access most families do not have: a PhD mentor, a process held to professional standards, and a team that sees the paper all the way to publication.

See the YRI Research Fellowship or compare both programs on the pricing page.

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