Grants Office Newsletter December 2025

Dear Researchers of the University of Basel,

We round up the year with a very vibrant SNSF Scientific Image Competition picture from the Department of Physics, bringing a bit of colour to the short winter days. Perhaps we are not the only ones to spot a snowflake or two amongst the flowers.

As finances at the SNSF come under pressure, the competition increases and this is a challenge that will accompany us into 2026. However, there are many positive moments in 2025 to look back on, like the reassociation to Horizon Europe and we continue to be amazed by your dedication in applying for funding. There is also plenty to celebrate with those who have a new project, among many others with four new BRIDGE Discovery projects, ERC Consolidator and ERC Synergy Grants, and three new SNSF Starting Grantees to welcome next year.

As you will see from the long list of upcoming calls and events, there are also many new opportunities to apply for funding that will be keeping us all busy in the coming months. As always, our door is open to anyone who needs a bit of support with the next application.

Last but not least, as 2025 comes to a close, we take a moment for a bit of reflection. If you have a few minutes, we would greatly appreciate your support, by completing a short survey about our Newsletter.

We wish you all a nice peaceful winter break and a good start to 2026.

The Grants Office Team

Eve Silfverberg, Gillianne Bowman, Aleksandra Grzegorczyk, Luca Wacker & Julia Wyss

Congratulations to our three new grantees who were awarded an SNSF Starting Grant from the 2025 Call.

• Fabian Baumann, Department of History
• Pauline Maillard, Department of Ancient Civilizations
• Zeynep Köylü, Department of Languages and Literatures

We wish them all the very best with their projects.

The 2026 SNSF Starting Grant has a deadline on 5^th May. We kindly invite you to attend our information event for applicants at the University of Basel. It takes place online on 5^th February, 17.00-18.00. Please register by sending an email to grants@unibas.ch.  

The BRIDGE Discovery programme funds researchers to transform scientific breakthroughs into societal and economic benefits. Researchers from the University of Basel participate in four projects from the 2025 call. Read more about their projects in our article.

Do you have a brilliant and transformative idea? The next call for applications will open in January 2026 with a deadline on 28 April 2026.  

READ ARTICLE

We would like to congratulate our new ERC grantees:

• Richard Warburton (Dept. Physics) as Co-PI in the ERC Synergy Grant project PHOQUS
• The four new ERC Consolidator Grantees 
  • Ivan Dokmanić (DMI) for his project PhaseShift
  • Flavio Donato (Biozentrum) for his project MALLEABLE MEMORY
  • Claudia Keller Valsecchi (Biozentrum) for her project EMERGE 
  • Last but not least Bence György from the IOB for his project BaseVision

The European Research Council (ERC) is launching ERC Plus grants—a bold new funding scheme offering up to EUR 7 million for transformative, long-term projects across all disciplines. Open to researchers worldwide, these highly competitive grants aim to tackle major scientific challenges and position Europe as a global leader in innovation.

If you’re ready to push boundaries: the first call opens by June 2026. Could your next big idea be Europe’s next breakthrough?

READ ARTICLE

On 10 November, Switzerland and the European Union have signed the EU Programmes Agreement to ensure the retroactive association to Horizon Europe, the Digital Europe Programme, and the Euratom programme from 1 January 2025 onwards. This is a significant milestone in Switzerland’s long-standing and forward-looking cooperation with the EU in education, research and innovation.

In the coming months, a variety of events on the different Horizon Europe programmes awaits you (see our events section and on the Euresearch website). The work programmes for the collaborative calls have been published last week. You find an overview of the upcoming deadlines on our website. As always, reach out to us any time if you have a question and/or want to apply to a Horizon Europe Call.

You receive the Grants Office newsletter four times a year and we are curious to learn what you like best and what you would like us to improve.

We kindly ask you to let us know your opinion by answering a short (max. 2 minutes) questionnaire. We ask about your ideas for our communication in the newsletter and on LinkedIn.

Thank you very much for helping us becoming better.

TO THE QUESTIONNAIRE

Have you enjoyed the teaser images in our newsletter? Do you want to see your own image here in the future?

The SNSF Scientific Image Competition 2026 is open now. Submit your own research photos or videos until 2 February 2026. With a little bit of luck, your photo will be awarded and appears in one of our next Grants Office Newsletters.

The Grants Office would like to congratulate:

• 24 SNSF projects
• 7 SNSF Weave/Lead agency; International Co-Investigator Scheme projects
• Patrick Maletinsky for his project from the Korean-Swiss Science and Technology Programme
• The four recipients of an SNSF SPARK grant
• Sabina De Geest, Felix Müller and Matthias Briel for their MSCA Doctoral Network projects
• Oliver Faude and Torsten Schwede for Swiss ORD projects
• David Tréfás for his swissuniversities grant
• Stephen Milford and Rui Mata for their NFP 84 projects
• Sarah Koch for the EU collaborative project HARMONIE
• Ines Mürner-Lavanchy for a project from the Palatin Stiftung
• Mohamed Bentires-Alj for his Innosuisse Flagship NAIPO
• Markus Lill, Gregor Hutter, Peter Rüthemann, Matthias Wymann, Markus Kalberer and Janani Duraraj for their Innosuisse funded projects
• Sam Beljouw for his EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship
• Simon van Vliet for his grant from the Novartis Foundation for Medical-Biological Research
• Elana Kaube for her grant from the Boeringer Ingelheim Fonds

Check out Research Professional for more national and international Calls.