ETH Grants

PI's are, in general, required to have at least one active SNSF grant or to hold one other substantial, peer-reviewed, external grant, e.g., from the EU. Exceptions are possible e.g. in the case of professors who have newly arrived at ETH Zurich.

A PI must also not submit more than one application per call (including both funding lines).

Employment must be guaranteed for the intended duration of the project.

More detailed information is given in the Download guidelines (PDF, 195 KB). Non-compliant applications will be rejected on formal grounds.


No special submission requirements are mandatory for this funding scheme, except if the PI is not an ETH professor and the doctoral supervisor is not an applicant on the proposal. The host professor must then confirm that they will take formal responsibility for the doctoral student, that the employment of the PI is guaranteed for the duration of the project and they must comment on the academic independence of the PI.

In case of a resubmission, a Cover Letter must be provided in which the criticism of both the Research Commission and the external reviewers is addressed point by point.

For expensive material and services (>15 kCHF), price quotations are requested.

Submission deadlines are 1 March and 1 September at 17:00 Swiss local time each year.

If a submission deadline falls on a weekend, it will be postponed to the following Monday, 17:00 Swiss local time.

Each application is subjected to an external peer review and is evaluated according to homogenous quality standards by the ETH Zurich Research Commission, which then issues a funding recommendation to the Vice President Research.

PIs will be notified about the funding decision within approximately four months after the application deadline.


Applications must be submitted electronically in pdf format using the dedicated ETH Zurich grant application system "eResearch". Applicants must use the provided templates and follow the naming conventions for the individual documents.

The call is usually open in the system about one month before the deadline.

The steps required to submit an application in the web-based ETH Zurich grant application system eResearch are outlined below.

The application must be started initially by the PI, but access can be delegated later. You can authorise any owner of a valid ETH account to edit the application at the bottom of the “Participants” section ("Access Authorisation / Delegate"). The person to whom the rights have been delegated can access the application via their own “My Co-Applications” list. Access rights can be revoked at any time. The final submission of the application must be made by the PI themselves.

Please also note that you can interrupt the processing of the application at any time and resume the work at a later date, provided you do so before the submission deadline. You can find instructions on how to do this at the bottom of the page.

Submitting an application:

1. Download the required forms.
2. Fill in the forms and complete other required documents. The documents must be named according to the naming conventions and converted to PDF format prior to submission.
3. Please register on eResearch with your ETH email address (username(at)ethz.ch) and set a password to create an account. This step only needs to be done when using eResearch for the first time. Having registered once, you can log in with your eResearch login details.
4. Click on “My Applications” in the navigation bar on the left to start a new application. (Alternatively, you can open a new application in the section “New Grant Application” on the homepage). 
5. Then click on “New Application”. You will be directed to a page where all open calls are available for selection. The call is usually open in the system about one month before the deadline. Select the funding instrument and click on “Apply”. You will now be in the edit mode of the newly opened application form. Please note the reference number of the application in the upper left corner.
6. Fill in all mandatory fields and upload the required attachments (marked with a red dot) by navigating from page to page using the “Next” and “Previous” buttons. Be sure you save the information you entered by clicking “Save”. As soon as all mandatory fields of a page are filled in, the icon in the sidebar on the left will turn green.
7. Add all persons involved in the proposal (e.g. doctoral supervisor, co-applicant) on the “Participants” page. This triggers an automatic e-mail to the respective person, including a request to upload the required documents (doctoral supervisor only). It is recommended to delegate access to administrative assistant(s) if you want them to handle the administrative post-grant processes (e.g. opening request for SAP-Projects, uploading CV’s and documents, changes in grant duration).
8. To enter reviewer suggestions, please note that a minimum of five external reviewer suggestions is required. The suggested reviewers should be independent of the PI, co-applicants, and any person that may receive funding as a result of the ETH Grant application (see guidelines for more information regarding suitability of external reviewers). Please do not propose reviewers from ETH Zurich or UZH and provide new names in case of a resubmission.
9. Once you have completed the application form, click on “Validation Summary" on the left. The “Validation Summary” page will then list all mandatory fields that have not yet been filled in. Please note that other persons involved in the application (e.g. a doctoral supervisor) must also have uploaded their attachments and made their entries before the submission deadline in order for the application to be successfully validated and submitted.
10. Fill in the missing fields and validate again. After successful validation, exit the edit mode by clicking “Save And Close”. 
11. Submit the application form by clicking the “Submit” button at the bottom right of the application summary page. Please scroll down if you cannot see the button. Changes are no longer possible after the application has been submitted. If you have submitted an application in error, please contact .
12. Create a PDF file of your application for your personal records. To do this, click on “View/print” in the “PDF the application” box on the right side of the same page.

To interrupt the processing of the application, you must:

1. Exit the edit mode of the application by clicking “Save And Close” and then log out on the left side of the page.
2. To continue working on an existing application, log in to the platform with your eResearch login details, go to “My Applications” on the left side of the page, and then select the respective application by clicking on the title or on the “View details” icon on the right.
3. Click “Edit” on the right side of the application summary page to enter the edit mode. Now proceed to edit your application.

ETH employees can access a protected page list of granted projects from the last three years.

Generic examples of suitable ETH Grant proposals can be found here.