Grants Office Newsletter February 2023

Dear Researchers of the University of Basel,

We hope you all started 2023 well. As we look ahead to the coming year, this issue focuses on collaboration, a key aspect to any research project. We inform you about some upcoming changes to the SNSF Project and Sinergia funding schemes, enabling further opportunities for collaborative projects in the future. The SNSF has also recently announced the possibility of lead-agency application with colleagues from the USA and is organizing an information event about funding opportunities from the US National Institute of Health.

On the subject of international collaboration, in the coming months there are many opportunities to apply for Horizon Europe projects, together with your European colleagues. We have gathered together the Call topics and recordings of the information days, so that you can easily find the most important information.

These projects focus on important global and societal challenges, one of which is undoubtedly the challenge we face regarding global climate change. The Grants Office spoke to Prof Ulf Hahnel from the Faculty of Psychology about his participation in a Horizon Europe project investigating integrated assessment models in the context of support for climate policies.

Last but by no means least, we are happy to introduce our new team member Julia Wyss who has joined the Grants Office as of January.

We wish you an interesting read and look forward to hearing about your planned research proposals.

Your Grants Office Team

Eve Silfverberg, Susanne Daniel, Caroline Peneff, Luca Wacker & Julia Wyss

The climate crisis is one of the most complex and challenging threats that humanity will have to face in the years to come. Researchers at the University of Basel are actively engaged in collecting facts and evidence to provide a scientific basis for urgent, fair and sustainable actions to mitigate global climate change. This is the case for Prof. Ulf Hahnel whom we met to learn more about his participation in the newly funded Horizon Europe project DIAMOND, as well as interdisciplinarity and his recommendations to young researchers on their way to academic independence.

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Many research topics and challenges cannot be answered by one discipline alone. It needs a group of interdisciplinary researchers collaborating together to tackle these questions from different angles. Since 2016, the SNSF has been supporting such projects through the Sinergia program.

In 2023, the SNF aims to expand its support for collaborative and interdisciplinary projects by embedding them in the main project funding scheme. The former Sinergia budget will be added to the project funding scheme to ensure higher funding overall. The first call for project funding including collaborative projects will be launched with the submission deadline on 1 October 2023.

In the meantime, you and your colleagues can still apply for a Sinergia grant by 17 April. Proposals must be submitted via the new SNSF Portal. For this call, a DMP is not required at submission stage, however, any data management costs need to be budgeted at the time of the proposal submission.

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After a pilot phase, the SNSF includes the SPARK funding scheme in its regular funding portfolio.
 

SPARK supports high-risk project proposals pushing the frontiers of your discipline by developing and testing new and unconventional scientific approaches, methods, theories, standards and ideas. The focus is on projects that are unlikely to receive funding in any other scheme. Project duration is 6 to 12 months. The evaluation process is double-blind.
 

Project proposals can be submitted from 3 April until the deadline on 2 May.

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Despite the current non-association to Horizon Europe, researchers based in Switzerland are still eligible to apply to many calls, in particular the collaborative projects addressing global challenges. 

Topics for the 2023 and 2024 Calls have been published and the European Commission organized subject specific information and networking days. A large majority of the deadlines are coming up in March and April, with others following in autumn 2023 and spring 2024. Research groups in Switzerland can participate in these collaborative projects and will be financed by the Swiss government, under the non-associated status.

The Euresearch network offers specific information, advice and support and offers free proposal reviews under certain conditions. Please contact the Grants Office if you plan to apply for a Horizon Europe project or you have any questions.

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We are pleased to introduce our new team member Julia Wyss.

Julia has extensive experience in research funding, having worked at the Jacobs Foundation, Zurich for many years where she has been running the international Jacobs Foundation Research Fellowship Program. At the Grants Office, she is mainly responsible for SNSF project funding and international foundations grants management.

We wish Julia a great start in our team.   

The Grants Office would like to congratulate:

• The PIs of 26 new SNSF projects and four new WEAVE/Lead Agency projects
• Seven new SNSF Starting Grantees: Anne-Katrin Pröbstel, Linda Simmler, Samuel Fuhrimann, Sabine Hohl, Isabelle Marthot-Santaniello, Murielle Delley and  Emma Hodcroft
• Bernice Elger, Mira Katan and Oliver Wenger for their ERA-NET projects
• Ernst Meyer and Sebastien Gagneux for their Sinergia projects
• Three new R’equip grants for PIs Annegret Mündermann, Ernst Meyer and Timothy Sharpe
• Oliver Nachtwey and Bernice Elger for their projects within the NRP80: Covid-19 in Society projects
• Kirsten Persson, Bernice Elger and Jens Gaab for the NRP79 Advancing 3R projects
• Sonja Merten for her new SPIRIT project
• Horizon Europe collaborative projects: Sabina de Geest with SQUEEZE and Marc Donath with Intercept-T2D
• Laurent Marot for new participations in Horizon Europe "Eurofusion" and ITER
• Three new Innosuisse projects with Butrint Aliu, Özgur Genc and Rachel Hevey
• Hannes Weigt, Frank Krysiak, Ulf Hahnel, Annika Sohre, Iljana Schubert and Jens Köhrsen for their SWEET consortium
• Sabina Gless for her Volkswagen Stiftung project
• Falestin Naïli, Knut Drescher, Sabine Hohl and Luca Giorgetti for their SNSF Consolidator grants