CYD Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship Program

The CYD Fellowships are designed to significantly increase research activities around the security chain by funding talented early-stage researchers in Switzerland. They seek to address some of the most challenging research and translational issues in cyber-defence by bringing together university- based researchers and cyber-defence stakeholders in Switzerland.

Goals

• Key goals of this Talent Program for Cyber-Defence Research include:
  • providing enhanced cyber security and privacy solutions, thereby reducing the asymmetry between attackers and defenders in cyber-defence;
  • accelerating the development of cyber solutions while taking into consideration the characteristics and needs of the technology industry and the operational ecosystem;
  • nurturing the next generation of top researchers in the cyber domain;
  • increasing the competitiveness of the Swiss cyber-defence community by leveraging synergies between the partners involved and testing new solutions within the Swiss cyber- defence research ecosystem.

Focus Areas

• Special preference is given to projects that address one or several of the following fields:
  • 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

• A maximum amount of CHF 3’000.- per year can be granted for research costs (only for specific equipment needed for the project, not general IT material), and a maximum amount of CHF 5’000.- per year can be granted for conference costs. These costs can be granted during the fellowship upon submission of a request with a justification for the funding.

Eligible Costs

• Eligible costs include and are limited to:
  • Salary: The requested salary contribution is based on the salary scale associated with the applicant’s position in the host institution.
  • Social Security Contributions: Based on the SNSF standard practice, the equivalent of the statutory social security contributions payable by employers in accordance with AHVG/IVG/EOG, BVG, AVIG and UVG (Swiss federal acts on social security contributions) will be paid to the host institution as a lump sum to be calculated as a percentage of the gross salary.
  • 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.

Eligible Projects

• Applicants must demonstrate that their project:
  • can significantly influence the research fields of security and data science and/or have significant impact on Swiss cyber-defence;
  • will bring together, in a collaborative effort, researchers from the CYD Campus and from at least one higher education institution in Switzerland.

Eligibility Criteria

• Citizens of any nationality may apply for the CYD Postdoctoral fellowships.
• No age restrictions apply.
• Applicants are only eligible to apply if they will conduct their distinguished postdoctoral fellowship in a different laboratory from the one of their doctoral and (if applicable) of their current postdoctoral research.
• In addition, applicants cannot be employed by the host laboratory where the CYD Fellowship is planned to be hosted during the Stage 1 submission period, i.e. between 31 May 2024 and 15 August 2024.
• Applicants must have the endorsement of a professor employed at a Swiss higher education institution willing to supervise them when they submit their Stage 2 application.
• Applicants with a host professor who is already supervising a fellow may apply, but preference will be given to applications with host professors that are not actively supervising fellows at the time of the application.
• 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.