SNSF Starting Grants
Funds early-career Swiss investigators building independent research groups through sustained support.
⚠This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.
The SNSF Starting Grants 2026 represent the Swiss National Science Foundation's highest level of career funding, designed to support early-career researchers who want to establish and lead their first independent research group in Switzerland. The 2026 call opened on 1 February 2026, with a submission deadline of 5 May 2026 at 17:00 CEST. The program is open to all scientific disciplines and provides up to CHF 1 million in project funding over a five-year period. Applicants may include their own salary at assistant professor or group leader level within the requested budget. Additional budget is earmarked to fund outstanding female applicants beyond the standard allocation.
Eligibility requires a doctorate, medical degree, or equivalent qualification; a post-doctoral experience window of 2 to 8 years, calculated to 1 February 2026 for this call; and a Swiss-link requirement of at least two years of research at 80% FTE at a Swiss institution before the deadline. Researchers rejected in a previous SNSF Starting Grants call may submit once more. From the 2025 call onward, awarded grants count toward the SNSF's limit of two simultaneous project grants.
The evaluation follows a two-phase process. Phase 1 is a written assessment, with results announced by the end of September 2026. Phase 2 consists of in-person interview panels by discipline: Social Sciences and Humanities on 28–29 January 2027, Life Sciences on 4–5 February 2027, and Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Engineering on 11–12 February 2027. Final funding decisions are announced in March 2027. The earliest possible project start date is 1 May 2027, with the latest start date capped at 1 May 2028. Given the interview-heavy Phase 2 structure, competitive applicants invest heavily in presenting a coherent five-year research vision that demonstrates both scientific originality and institutional readiness.
Independent research projects across all disciplines proposed by early-career researchers (2–8 years post-doctorate) establishing their first independent group at a Swiss institution.
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