2024 Call for Consolidation Grants

Consolidation Grants (CG) aim to encourage more advanced, solid projects between Switzerland and the East Asia or the Southeast Asia region. The impulse for the CG proposals should come from previous collaborations between the Switzerland-​​based and the East-​​ or Southeast Asia-​​based applicant, with the goal to evolve and deepen those partnerships.

Eligible candidates: postdoctoral students, senior scientists, or professors of Swiss federal and cantonal universities, universities of applied sciences and universities of teacher education, and public research institutions. Open to all scientific disciplines and research fields, including social sciences, humanities and the arts.

Grant sum: max. 50 kCHF
Project duration: up to 12 months
Eligible partners: located in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, South Korea, Taiwan and ASEAN member states.

Goals and objectives

The 2024 Call for Consolidation Grants is a special call that supports research projects with collaborating institutions in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, South Korea, Taiwan and ASEAN member states . The collaboration must be based on an existing partnership between researchers and scientists affiliated to a Swiss institution and researchers affiliated to an Asian institution.

The Consolidation Grants (CG) aim to encourage more advanced, solid projects between Switzerland and the East Asia or the Southeast Asia region. The impulse for the CG proposals should come from previous collaborations between the Switzerland-​based and the East-​ or Southeast Asia-​based applicant, with the goal to evolve and deepen those partnerships. The objective of this instrument is to allow researchers to conduct fieldwork, laboratory feasibility studies, to organize conferences and workshops, to fund the preparation of a joint project proposal for submission to other funding agencies (e.g. national funding agencies or EU funding schemes) or research projects to develop long-​term partnerships between two institutions or research groups. Activities to intensify joint teaching or curriculum development are also eligible for this grant.


Eligibility

To be eligible to apply, the partners must have already conducted at least one activity together. Applications which do not specify any ongoing or completed joint activity will not be considered for funding.

The call is open to all scientific disciplines and fields of research, including social sciences and humanities.

Postdoctoral scientists, senior scientists and professors of Swiss federal and cantonal universities, universities of applied sciences, universities of teacher education, as well as public research institutes, are eligible to apply. Please check the eligible institutions here. The main applicant must be employed at one of the aforementioned Swiss institutions. Researchers of all nationalities are eligible to apply as main applicant.

Note to applicants from UAS/UTE: UAS/UTE staff with research responsibility (group leaders, researchers with 5+ years of experience) and in equivalent functions are eligible to apply. If in doubt or in case you are not sure whether your position is eligible to act as a Principal Investigator (PI), please email elise.nardin@sl.ethz.ch.

A single Switzerland-​based scientist or a consortium of Switzerland-​based scientists from different research institutions can act as the main applicant. In the latter case, one of the members of the consortium must act as the main applicant.

The partner applicant has to be a senior academic researcher affiliated with a university of a public institute of the partner country. Asian researchers interested in acting as co-​applicants on the Asian side have to contact their Switzerland-​based peers.

Application Process

The Switzerland-​based applicant must apply to ETH Zurich as the Leading House Asia. The application must be submitted online with the following attachments in one single pdf document (English).

The application shall include:
- Completed research plan
- CV of Switzerland-​based PI (and any co-​applicants), max. 2 pages each
- CV of Asian co-​applicant (and any additional co-​applicants), max. 2 pages each
- Any other supporting document(s)

Applications that do not follow the instructions will be dismissed.

Timeline, Call Documents and Online Application see on the ETH website