Grants Office Newsletter September 2026

Dear Researchers of the University of Basel, 

We hope you all started the semester well. In this issue of our Newsletter we have lots of news for postdocs, from the last Ambizione Call to the second Career Day for Postdocs. 

The Research Data Management team invites you to their conference in January and as we enter the final year of Horizon Europe there are plenty of open Calls and Events for you to participate in. 

On the ERC side the final Starting Grant Call under Horizon Europe closes in October with the deadlines for the other schemes following next year. The Vice President for Research has launched a new seed money Call for collaborative projects including ERC Synergy and applications for this scheme are particularly encouraged. 

If you want to know more about Horizon Europe we’d be happy to see you at our informal Coffee and Cookies in November. 

The Grants Office Team

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

Once again, the University of Basel has been very successful in the ERC Starting Grant Call. We congratulate the six new ERC Starting Grantees at the university. This is a fantastic result! We wish you all best for your projects. 

The ERC Starting Grant call 2027, deadline on 14 October 2026, is approaching. If you are still planning to apply, please get in touch with us: grants@unibas.ch. We will be happy to support you in preparing your application. 

Further upcoming deadlines are:

• ERC Consolidator Grant with deadline on 12 January 2027, which will open at the end of September 2026.

• ERC Synergy Grant with deadline on 11 May 2027, which will open in February 2027

As a reminder, you can request seed money for the preparation of ERC projects from the University Research Fund, in particular for ERC Synergy Grants. 

We heartily congratulate the 9 new Ambizione grantees of the 2025 call and wish you all a very good start and every success with your projects. 

The next and last call for Ambizione has a deadline on 3 November. The Grants Office supports candidates with the University of Basel as a host institute. 

Applicants who are not yet in touch with us are kindly asked to reach out to grants@unibas.ch. 

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network Call 2026 includes both the “traditional” doctoral networks as well as the RAISE Doctoral Networks for AI in Science. 

The deadline for both schemes is 24 November 2026. 

Find out more about MSCA Doctoral Networks and how you can participate in our article. 

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The Career Day for Postdocs at the University of Basel will be held on Friday, 13 November, from 9.45-16.00 at the Hotel Odelya in Basel. The program will provide postdocs the opportunity to explore a wide range of career options – both within and beyond academia – and to reflect on their professional future. Additionally, the event will of course offer opportunities for networking and the exchange of ideas with peers. 

• Keynote lecture: “Beyond the Exit Question: Navigating Your Postdoc Career Options”.

• Lunch with Career Market: Representatives of companies and organizations as well as career-related units of the University of Basel will be present to offer insights into different professions and career opportunities.

• Career Talks: Former postdocs share their career journeys and experiences in exciting roles across academia, industry and the public sector.

For more information visit: Events | University of Basel. The registration is open now!

Are you writing a data management plan for your research project, would you like to know more about funding opportunities for your data management or are you looking for the best way to store, organize and publish your research data? The Research Data Management Network of the University of Basel is happy to support you. Find your data steward and helpful resources such as guidelines, cheat sheets and templates on our website. 

Would you like to learn more about how to best organize, process, and publish your research data? Then don’t miss our Data Curation Conference on January 14, 2027, where you can exchange practical tips and discuss common pitfalls with fellow researchers. You’re welcome to share your own experiences – please see our call for proposals.

DETAILS AND REGISTRATION

In 2027, we enter the final year of Horizon Europe and your last opportunity to apply to the upcoming calls. . We have collected the main deadlines for the different topics on our website. Please take note of the postponed deadlines in the Cluster 1 – Health calls. 

To inform and support University of Basel researchers, we are organizing two events later this year: 

• Horizon Europe Coffee & Cookies: The Grants Office organizes a drop-in event around all Horizon Europe calls: ERC, MSCA and collaborative projects. Researchers from all departments are welcome to join. 
  Biozentrum Foyer, Tuesday 24 November, 12.30-14.00. 
  Send us an email to register, or just come by. 

• In the first week of November the Grants Office hosts an online event specifically for Clusters 5&6, covering the topics of Climate, Energy & Mobility and Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture & Environment. Details will be updated on our events page very soon.

The Grants Office would like to congratulate: 

• Ilaria Zardo, Judith Zaugg and Daniel Ricklin for their MSCA Doctoral Networks
• Martino Poggio, Patrick Maletinsky and Yelena Guryanova for their SCNAT Swiss Quantum Initiative projects
• Lars Stein, Ruth Gutsch, Adam Hearn and Georg Holländer for their Innosuisse projects
• Philippe Cattin for his Weave project 
• Christine Alewell, Pasquale Borrelli, Surya Gupta and Iljana Schubert for their Horizon Europe collaborative projects 
• Judith Zaugg for her Helmut Horten Foundation grant
• Ivan Martin for the Novo Nordisk Foundation project
• Alejandro Tejada Arranz for a project funded by the Lungenliga
• Franziska Korner-Nievergelt for a grant from the Forschungsförderung der Deutschen Ornithologischen Gesellschaft
• Petya Apostolova for a Jacques and Gloria Gossweiler Foundation grant
• David Brückner, Silvia Arber & Nitish Kumar Sahani, Yuping Li & Vladimir Panteleev for their Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds projects
• Anas Taha, Stephanie Taha-Mehlitz for their Intuitive Foundation grant
• Judith Zaugg, Christof Sparr for their ERC Proof of Concept Grants
• David Vijatovic for a Schmidt Science Fellowship
• Céline Tourbier, Valentina Basoli, Florian Thieringer for their Geistlich-Stucki-Stiftung projects
• Martina Baraldo for an AFM Téléthon grant
• Petya Apostolova for an ISREC Tandem project
• Christoph Handschin for the Novartis Foundation for Medical-Biological Research grant
• Mohamed Bentires-Alj for a Breast Cancer Research Foundation grant 
• Công Truc Lê for the EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship

Check out ResearchConnect for more national and international Calls.