Open Call for CYD Doctoral Fellowships

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. Applicants must demonstrate that their project:

• Can significantly influence the research fields of security and data science and 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.

Goals

• 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

• 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.

Eligible Costs

• Salary
• Social Security Contributions
• Research and Conference Costs
• Overheads

Eligibility Criteria

• CYD Doctoral Fellowships are open to researchers at doctoral level who are willing to engage with cross-cutting issues in cyber-defence.
• 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 if the requested funding period coincides with the completion of their PhD thesis.

Selection Criteria

• The selection process includes two stages:
  • In Stage 1 the submitted applications will be evaluated by a CYD Campus internal committee chaired by the Director of the CYD Campus, based on the following criteria: the fit of the candidate with the CYD Campus and the fit of the candidate’s pre-proposal with the aims of the program.
  • Shortlisted applicants will be assigned a prospective CYD Campus mentor. This prospective mentor will interview the applicant to determine if he or she is willing to endorse the applicant for Stage 2. Only those applicants who are endorsed by their prospective CYD Campus mentor will be able to proceed to Stage 2.

For more information, visit EPFL.