Grants Office Newsletter June 2023

Dear Researchers of the University of Basel,

In this issue of our Newsletter, we would like to give you an update on developments on a national and international level. As several areas of Horizon Europe continue to be inaccessible to researchers in Switzerland, in May, the Federal Council approved further support for Transitional Measures. You can find links and information about the Calls, that have already been announced, in our news. Speaking of transitional measures, last year a special Quantum Transitional Call was launched and University of Basel researchers were particularly successful. We invited the PIs who have received grants, to share their experience with this Call.

There is also plenty of news on a national level. In particular, we are happy to invite you to our event “SNSF live in Basel”, jointly organised with the SNSF where you can hear first-hand what the upcoming changes to SNSF project funding schemes mean for you.

Finally, we would like to introduce a new colleague, who joined the Grants Office in June.

Your Grants Office Team

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

As of the October 2023 deadline, the SNSF is making changes to their project funding scheme. This includes the integration of Sinergia, thus continuing to provide an opportunity to submit interdisciplinary projects to a dedicated panel. Changes are also being made with regards to the maximum number of projects allowed per PI, upper funding limits and requirements for Data Management Plans.

On 29 June, the SNSF will present changes at an online event.

On 25 August, the SNSF will be here in Basel to talk about these changes and other SNSF Calls. Register early for this event to receive the most up-to-date information first hand.

The long awaited announcement is finally here. The State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) has mandated the SNSF to launch a second SNSF Consolidator Call. The Call will open on 3 July with a deadline on 16 October. In the last Call 31 researchers successfully received a SNSF Consolidator Grant, including three researchers from the University of Basel.

At the end of May, the Federal Council also approved the allocation of funds for a third Swiss Advanced Grant Call, further details will follow from the SNSF.

Since organizations in Switzerland were excluded to apply for most of the calls regarding quantum research in Horizon Europe, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) has mandated the SNSF to launch a Quantum Transitional Call in autumn 2022. Researchers at the University of Basel have been very successful in this call with four funded projects. We have asked the researchers what this transition measure means for their research and if this can mitigate some of the negative effects of the non-association to Horizon Europe.

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The Federal Council announced its continued support for the transitional measure SNSF Swiss Postdoctoral Fellowship. The SNSF is expected to launch the call in autumn. For EU nationals or long-term residents who wish to conduct their research at a Swiss host institution, the MSCA Postdoctoral Global Fellowship Call is open now.

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On June 2, the Federal Council approved four new National Research Programmes (NRPs) on biodiversity, gender medicine, building culture and plant breeding. A total of CHF 47 million will be allocated to support the new NRPs over a five-year period. The SNSF will announce the calls later this year.

Further news from Bern, the sixth and last Call for National Centres of Competence in Research (NCCR) is expected to be launched "this summer". As for the previous calls, the establishment of consortia and the development of proposals will be supported by the University's Research Fund. The Vice president for Research and the Research Office will inform in due time on the internal application and selection process. In the last NCCR Call the University of Basel was very successful with two approved NCCRs: AntiResist and SPIN.  

From early September onwards, the next deadlines for Horizon Europe collaborative projects are coming up. Researchers at Swiss institutes are eligible to participate in collaborative projects, covering a wide range of topics.

For researchers from SSH, the Net4SocietyHE has published an overview highlighting the specific opportunities in the upcoming calls.

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Last but by no means least, we would like to introduce Gillianne Bowman, who joined the Grants Office in June. She has a PhD from the Institute of Environmental Sciences, University of Zurich and brings with her valuable experience in managing interdisciplinary research projects. Within the Grants Office, she will be responsible for supporting applications for collaborative and more applied projects, such as Innosuisse and European Innovation Council Grants.

We wish Gillianne a great start in our team.

The Grants Office would like to congratulate:

• The PIs of 18 new SNSF projects
• Penelope Vounatsou for a Weave/Lead Agency project
• Botond Roska for his Sinergia project
• Andrea Hofmann, Patrick Maletinsky, Martino Poggio, Philipp Treutlein and Richard Warburton for their projects from the Quantum Transitional Call 2022
• Horizon Europe collaborative projects: TBVAC-Horizon with Carolyn King and Daniel Pinschewer, MPX-Response with Matthias Briel
• ERC projects team member Dominik Fleitmann in MEDGREENREV (ERC SyG) and SSE1K (ERC CoG)
• Four Innosuisse projects with Carsten Gründemann, Vesna Petkovic, Georg Rauter and Heiko Schuldt
• Amandine Grimm for her Synapsis Foundation project
• Timo Hinrichs for Velux Stiftung funding
• Stavros Stagakis for his MeteoSwiss project
• Jennifer Belus and Mattia Zampieri for their NIH subawards
• Gregor Hutter for his Eurostars project CLEIO
• Anna Marsano for Swiss Heart Foundation funding
• Two projects from Hasler Stiftung: Gunther Meinlschmidt and Cristina Granziera
• Myrto Panopoulou for an EMBO Fellowship
• Three projects from SPHN: Morgan Sangeux, Martin Siegemund and Jan Bonhoeffer
• Two projects from Swiss Polar Institute: Sabine Rumpf and Oliver Schilling
• Sarah Moore for a Botnar Research Centre for Child Health funding
• Nicolas Sanderson for the Fondation suisse de recherche sur les maladies musculaires project

Check out Research Professional for more national and international Calls.