These grants are to support collaborative inter-university cutting-edge research for students with top academic credentials studying towards an engineering degree (with engineering understood as to include environmental engineering and involving the use of scientific principles for the design, construction or production of physical or virtual structures or systems to implement an application*), or towards a degree in all medieval disciplines, as well as towards a degree in digital humanities at the intersection of medieval disciplines and computer or data science.

* Note: For projects that are at the intersection of engineering and disciplines other than medieval disciplines, we require that challenges posed by the project be in engineering and not in the other discipline. For this reason, the host faculty and laboratory must in such cases be mainly active in engineering.

The grant aims to encourage research collaboration between two universities that must be located in two different countries, namely the home university of the candidate and a hosting university or research institute, with one of the two being situated and governed in Switzerland. The grant will contribute to cover local living costs of the candidate while she/he is visiting in person for the entire period the hosting university or research institute exclusively, together with travel costs corresponding to a low-fare economy-class return airfare/train ticket from the home university to the hosting university.

Please note that this grant : 

• cannot be used, be it directly or indirectly, to cover fees charged by the hosting university to the student (such as tuition, visiting student, hosting, administrative, processing, department bench, laboratory fees or the like). To be considered for funding, all applications must therefore include the following “verbatim” statement : “I here with confirm that any hosting related fee charged by my institution to visiting students will be waived or fully covered by my chair or laboratory. This however does not concern payments made via my institution for third party services such as health insurance or visa processing fees” approved by signature by the director of the hosting chair or laboratory

• will not be awarded to students enrolled in inter-university degree or exchange programs for exchanges between universities of the program(s) in question.

The Foundation will give no information, justification or reason for its decisions concerning acceptance or rejection of applications. By submitting an application, the applicant implicitly accepts that no reply will be given to such requests.

We wish to inform applicants that, due to a significant number of applications to our fellowship programs, there is a high probability that students whose grade point average is not in the top tier (roughly top 10-15 %) for their institution(s) of study will not be selected.

Stipend duration

Three to six months.

Grant

A stipend of 2’000, — Swiss francs per month to defray local living expenses at the hosting university or research institute, plus flat rate economy-class return airfare/train ticket from the home university to the hosting university.

If the applicant has other sources of funding: 

• for an amount of up to 20% of our grant there will not be any deduction

• for an amount above of 20 % of the grant, the deduction will be that amount from the other source of funding that exceeds 20% of our grant

• nevertheless at least 10% of our original grant will be maintained.

No other fees and/or university overhead (tuition fees or visiting fees) will be covered.

The last installment of the grant (CHF 2’000.-) will be paid only upon receipt of a statement sent directly from the thesis advisor at the home university (the same who signed the project), confirming that the attendance was successfully completed and of the electronic copy of the thesis.

Questions that are clearly answered by grant rules above will receive no answer; also, requests for exceptions to grant rules above will not be taken into consideration.