Applying for subsidies

Each year the VPA DP-RE offers grants to acknowledged student’s associations for duly submitted specific campus projects.

The applicant shall report to the EPFL on the state of its finances, the use of resources for its project and the latter’s outcome if support is granted.

One project per acknowledged student association may be submitted.
If the association is composed of statutory committees, regardless of the number of committees, the association may submit 2 applications for funding.

Grantings are awarded taking into account the following criterias :

  • Applications related (in priority) to one-off or recurring projects (and not running or food&breverage costs) that benefit a majority of students on campus.
  • Applications received from associations that lack the means to fully finance their projects.
  • Applications related to projects aimed at improving the integration or representation of students, promoting cultural diversity, or proposing festive or artistic events, thus contributing to the animation of the campus.
  • Projects that align with the association’s statutory goals.
  • Within the limit of our available budget.

Projects or activities of section’s associations or similar (MAKE projects or associations being supervised by an EPFL academic representative) are excluded from this procedure. Exceptions can be discussed if the project / activity is open to the whole community, with a financial participation of the EPFL unit that supervises them.

The grant application must be sent by Friday November 7, 2025 to [email protected]. Files incomplete by this date or submitted after the deadline will be automatically discarded.

Students’ Association Office will then examine all the files before taking a grant decision and will inform the applicant no later than Monday March, 2nd 2026.

Your grant application file must include the following documents :

  1. Grant application form (only in French)
  2. Description of the project / event for which you are requesting financial support (3 pages max.)
  3. Forecast Budget 2026 & Actual Budget 2025 of the project/event (according to the model provided here).
    Please return the duly completed template, including the actual 2026 budget, along with feedback on the execution and impact of the event, within a maximum of three months after the project/event has taken place.
  4. Overall Budget 2026 & Income Statement 2025 of the association (according to the model provided here ).
  5. Estimated Balance Sheet 2026 & Actual Balance Sheet 2025 (according to the model provided here).
  6. Activity report for the previous year, that is 2024-2025.
  7. Sponsorship file & list of prospects.

Note that the Balance Sheet & Income Statement templates can be modified according to your specific needs. Do not hesitate to rework it and use it for the presentation of the annual accounts of your association to the General Assembly.

Students’Association Office offers an accounting course on Thursdays October 9 and 16 to members of the steering committees interested in this aspect, and more particularly to the treasurers who will find there the necessary assistance in the preparation of the accounting documents required above.

In the event of a positive response to your grant application, you will be asked to establish an invoice so that we can make the payment to the association’s account (no payment will be made to accounts in the name of individuals).

Please find here the template for your invoice (in french only).

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IMPORTANT – BILLING PROCEDURE 

The EPFL invoicing system is centralized.

Mandatory information on the invoice :

  • Your complete banking details
  • Recipient’s postal address, that is :
    EPFL
    Accounts Payable
    Station 99
    1015 Lausanne
    SWITZERLAND
    [email protected]

No other EPFL e-mail address (generic EPFL address of your association or EPFL e-mail address of one of its members) should be mentioned on the document because the new artificial intelligence tool that processes the invoices recognises only one EPFL e-mail address.

Invoice sending terms :

  • Format : A single document in PDF format (invoice + any annexes)
  • Email only : [email protected]
  • Please cc Franciane Guibert ([email protected]), who is in charge of the finances of our unit, and [email protected], on your e-mail. This will enable us to follow up the processing of your invoice.