Call for Proposals: CYD Doctoral Fellowships

Deadline Date: August 15, 2024

 Donor Name: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

 Grant Size: $1000 to $10,000

The EPFL is pleased to announce the CYD Doctoral Fellowships that will provide a salary and research and conference funds for four years (with a possible one-year extension), enabling fellows to complete a PhD thesis at the CYD Campus under the supervision of a professor at a higher education institution in Switzerland.

This program is designed to expand research and education in the area of cyber-defence. It is intended to bring together basic and applied research skills and hence encourage new solutions to major challenges in the fields of cyber-security and data science.

This program is highly competitive, and the primary evaluation criterion is excellence, as measured by academic records and professional accomplishments. Candidates applying for a CYD fellowship are expected to have excellent grade transcripts.

Mission

• CYD Doctoral Fellowships are open to researchers at doctoral level who are willing to engage with cross-cutting issues in cyber-defence, with a particular emphasis on:
  • Protection of confidentiality, integrity, and availability of cyber and cyber-physical systems.
  • Information sharing, data fusion and crowdsourcing.
  • Data science & AI methods for analysing cyber- and technology-relevant data.
  • Security, privacy and digital trust technologies.

Funding Information

• Eligible costs include and are limited to:
  • Salary contribution (incl. social security benefits) based on the salary scale associated with the applicant’s position in the host institution.
  • Research costs: A maximum amount of CHF 3’000.- per year can be granted for research costs (only for specific equipment needed for the project, not for general IT material).
  • Conference costs: A maximum amount of CHF 5’000.- per year can be granted for conference costs.
  • Research and conference costs can be granted during the fellowship upon submission of a request with a justification for the funding.
  • Overheads: Institutional overhead rates are set at a fixed rate of 15% of overall project costs. This rate takes into account the fact that CYD Doctoral and Postdoctoral fellows benefit from the CYD Campus facilities and receive research and conference funds.

Eligibility Criteria

• Citizens of any nationality may apply for the CYD Doctoral fellowships.
• No age restrictions apply.
• Applicants must be enrolled in a doctoral program at a Swiss higher education institution and have the endorsement of a professor employed in this institution willing to supervise them when they submit their Stage 2 application (see Selection process).
• Applicants may seek the endorsement of a professor employed at a school of applied sciences, but they must provide written confirmation at Stage 2 that they are simultaneously enrolled in a doctoral program at a Swiss university.
• Applicants may apply at any time during their doctoral studies, but preference will be given to applications who have not started yet their PhD or who are at the beginning of their PhD.
• Applicants may request funding for less than four years only if they have already completed the first two years of their doctoral program and the requested funding period coincides with the completion of their PhD thesis.
• The fellowship should be carried out on a full-time basis (100%). Specific exceptions linked to personal reasons (maternity/parental leave, care of family members, etc.) could possibly be considered depending on individual circumstances.

For more information, visit EPFL.