SPI Exploratory Grants Program – Switzerland

Collaboration with new teams or across disciplines are particularly encouraged, as well as participation in larger/international activities. The grants can be used to complement the funding of initiatives supported by larger funding schemes (e.g. SNSF, EU, etc.).

Financial Support

• The grants are destined to cover costs for up to 75’000.- CHF per successfully evaluated project. For this year (2023), the total budget allocated to SPI Exploratory Grants will be capped at 200’000.- CHF.

Eligible Costs

• travel costs to scientific stations/infrastructure in polar regions (including for the performance of technical/maintenance work);
• shipment of scientific equipment or material, samples;
• costs for preliminary analysis/early processing of data/samples directly after fieldwork (max. 15’000.- CHF);
• purchase of small equipment (in duly justified cases) and consumables;
• rental of scientific equipment or sensing systems;
• valorisation or integration of datasets;
• offset of carbon emissions, if not an option already offered by the institution of affiliation.

Target Public

• The SPI Exploratory Grants are complementary to the Polar Access Fund (specifically focused on early-career scientists). Consequently, eligibility will be limited to established researchers or post-docs (at least 3 years after PhD graduation). The grants are open to all researchers employed by a Swiss public research institution.
• Researchers from all fields of research, also fields considered as “non-typical” for polar sciences (e.g. engineering, materials, medicine, humanities and social sciences, etc.), are encouraged to apply if they have a project to be conducted in a polar context.

Geographic Focus

• The SPI Exploratory Grants fund Swiss scientists active in polar regions, the Arctic and Antarctic, according to the SPI’s high latitude focus.
• High-altitude research is an essential part of SPI and an important complementary area of interest to high latitude poles. However, funding of fieldwork and logistics for high-altitude research will concentrate on projects contributing to comparative high-altitude studies in support of polar issues and on complex and expensive logistics for fieldwork in remote high-altitude areas such as the Andes and the Himalayas.

Evaluation

• Eligible proposals submitted before the deadline will be evaluated by an external scientific evaluation panel appointed by the SPI.
• The proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
  • Scientific merit of the proposed project;
  • Originality of the project;
  • Feasibility (scientific and logistical);
  • Experience and expertise of the PI and partners for the proposed project;
  • Added value of the requested funding.

For more information, visit Swiss Polar Institute.