Funding Opportunities
Would you like to join us? We are always pleased to hear from researchers at various stages of their careers who have concrete project and funding ideas. Please see some funding opportunities below.
Ambizione
Are you a young researcher from Switzerland or abroad who wishes to conduct, manage and lead an independent project at a Swiss higher education institution? Do you already have twelve months of research experience since getting your PhD or your medical degree, but has it still been less than 4 years since then? Please apply for the Ambizione grant by 1 November 2022.
Click external pagehere to find out more.
SNSF Swiss Postdoctoral Fellowship (SPF)
If you got your PhD less than 8 years ago and you meet the mobility rule*, apply for the SPF by 1 December 2022. (*Applicants must not have resided or carried out their main activity [work, studies, etc.] in Switzerland for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately prior to the submission deadline.) Your proposal will be judged on excellence, impact as well as quality and efficiency of the implementation.
Click external pagehere to find out more.
SNSF Professorial Fellowships
(incorporating PRIMA and Eccellenza)
Are you an excellent woman researcher who shows a high potential for obtaining a professorship? Increasing the share of women in key research positions is a strategic goal of the SNSF, who merged their PRIMA and Eccellenza grants into the new SNSF Professorial Fellowships, soon to be open for applications.
Click external pagehere for the news about the merge and click external pagehere to find out more about the SNSF Professorial Fellowship.
BRIDGE Proof of Concept
Have you earned your spurs as a young researcher and come up with an idea for developing your research results into a marketable product? Are you looking for an opportunity to test and refine your idea? Then BRIDGE Proof of Concept might just be what you are looking for. This grant helps young researchers to apply their research results and gain the confidence needed to make a market entry. The projects may target innovations of all kinds from all research areas.
Click external pagehere to find out more.
ETH for Development
ETH for Development (ETH4D) fosters opportunities for students and researchers from low-income countries. For example, the goal of the ETH4D Research Grants is to enable collaborations on project-based research between ETH researchers and non-academic partners and partners from the Global South. Another example is the E4D Doctoral Scholarship Programme, which awards scholarships covering three year's of salary of doctoral students working on research with impact on lower-income countries.
Click here to find out more.
ETH Fellows
The ETH Zurich Postdoctoral Fellowship programme (ETH Fellows) supports incoming postdoctoral researchers at ETH Zurich. The programme is intended to foster young researchers who have already demonstrated scientific excellence in the early stages of their careers. The fellowships are intended as early support towards academic independence.
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Schmidt Science Fellows
The Schmidt Science Fellows program provides the world’s best emerging scientists with new skills and perspectives to develop novel solutions to society’s challenges, become scientific and societal thought leaders, and accelerate ground-breaking discoveries. Candidates to be Schmidt Science Fellows are expected to already have a strong track record of scientific achievement from their PhD studies, combined with a clear intellectual curiosity and desire to drive future discoveries.
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Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships
Each year, the Swiss Confederation awards Government Excellence Scholarships to promote international exchange and research cooperation between Switzerland and over 180 other countries. Recipients are selected by the awarding body, the Federal Commission for Scholarships for Foreign Students. The Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships are aimed at young researchers from abroad who have completed a Master’s degree or PhD and at foreign artists holding a Bachelor’s degree. The research scholarship is available to post-graduate researchers in any discipline (who hold a Master’s degree as a minimum) who are planning to come to Switzerland to pursue research or further studies at doctoral or post-doctoral level.
Click external pagehere to find out more.
The European Molecular Biology Organization
The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is an organization of more than 1,800 leading researchers that promotes excellence in the life sciences in Europe and beyond. The major goals of the organization are to support talented researchers at all stages of their careers, stimulate the exchange of scientific information, and help build a research environment where scientists can achieve their best work. EMBO helps young scientists to advance their research, promote their international reputations and ensure their mobility. For example, external pageEMBO Postdoctoral Fellowships are awarded for a period of two years. Another example is external pagethe EMBO New Venture Fellowship, which intends to support high quality candidates to explore feasible projects or generate preliminary data to help transform their research trajectory.
Click external pagehere to find out more.
The Swiss National Science Foundation
Based on a government mandate, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) supports scientific research in all academic disciplines – from physics to medicine to sociology. At the end of 2020, the SNSF was funding more than 6000 projects involving 20,000 researchers, which makes it the leading Swiss institution for promoting scientific research. In 2020, it awarded CHF 937 million to the most promising project proposals. By allocating public research money based on the principle of competition, the SNSF contributes to the high quality of research in Switzerland.
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Funding Opportunities at ETH Zurich
At ETH Zurich, funding instruments are commonly divided into two types. Find out which one suits you best!
- Career funding is personal and non-transferable. Its main purpose is to provide a salary for a single researcher (fellowship) or student (scholarship) at an early stage of their career (Master's student, doctoral student, postdoc).
- Project funding is intended to finance material costs and salaries of project members apart from the principal investigator (PI). Since this PI is typically already employed at a research institution and receives a salary from there, this type of funding is generally associated with professors. However, there are also instruments for doctoral and postdoctoral project funding.
Please see an overview of ETH Zurich funding for early-career researchers here: Young researchers | ETH Zurich