ETH4D Research Challenges & Pilot Grants

ETH4D Research Challenges

The goal of the ETH4D Research Challenges is to enable collaborations on project-based research between ETH researchers, non-academic partners and partners from low- and lower-middle income countries to develop effective solutions for poverty reduction.

An ETH4D Research Challenge needs to be a clearly defined research question that has the objective of creating positive impact for people living in low- and lower-middle-income countries. It must be a research question related to (a) the research interests of an ETH Zurich research group and (b) the current or future work of a private or public organisation. Only solid research proposals with high scientific quality will be funded.

ETH4D Pilot Grants

ETH4D Pilot Grants provide a smaller amount of funding to explore new collaborations, pilot a new applied research project or scale up existing research projects in low- and lower-middle income countries.

ETH4D Pilot Grants can be used for:

Feasibility and pilot studies that might lead to a proposal for a larger research collaboration
Scaling-up existing research projects with potentially high impact

Applications are open until 30 September 2023.

Main application criteria

Main applicant: ETH Professor or ETH researcher (senior scientist, postdocs or doctoral candidates, all with the support of an ETH Professor). The call is open to researchers from all diciplines of the ETH domain.

Grant sum: 20 - 200 kCHF

Matching funds: The applicant and/or project partners must provide 70% of the requested grant sum in the form of cash contributions.

Project duration: up to 18 months

Eligible partner countries: All countries in the DownloadOECD DAC-LIST 2023 (PDF, 204 KB) except from upper-middle income countries. If well justified, projects in upper middle-income countries can be funded in exceptional cases.

Application Documents:

Project narrative (Downloadusing narrative template (DOCX, 42 KB))
Bibliography
Work packages and Milestones shown in a Gantt-Chart.
Budget (Downloadusing budget template (XLSX, 16 KB))
Letter(s) of support from the non-academic partner(s), clearly stating the interest in the project and the partnership, its relevance to the organisation, and the time-related and financial contributions the partner is willing to make to the project
Letter of support from ETH professor (only applicable if the main applicant is not an ETH professor)
CVs of all involved partners (2 pages max. per partner)

Please read the DownloadEligibility Criteria and Application Requirements (PDF, 194 KB) before applying.

All application documents must be written in English and submitted in this online application form.

Main applicant: ETH researcher (senior scientist, postdocs or doctoral candidates, all with the support of an ETH Professor). The call is open to researchers from all diciplines of the ETH domain.

Grant sum: up to 20 kCHF

Project duration: up to 18 months

Eligible partner countries: All countries in the DownloadOECD DAC-LIST 2023 (PDF, 204 KB) except from upper-middle income countries. If well justified, projects in upper middle-income countries can be funded in exceptional cases.

Application Documents:

Project narrative (Downloadusing narrative template (DOCX, 42 KB))
Bibliography
Work packages and Milestones shown in a Gantt-Chart
Budget (Downloadusing budget template (XLSX, 14 KB))
Letter(s) of support from the non-academic partner(s), clearly stating the interest in the project and the partnership, its relevance to the organisation, and the time-related and financial contributions the partner is willing to make to the project
Letter of support from ETH professor
CVs of all involved partners (2 pages max. per partner)