The scholarships and financial support are mainly intended for student parents and young scientists.
Grants
The Robert Gnehm Grant for parent postdocs (hereafter the RGG) aims to support parent postdocs in the first year of parenthood, allowing them to devote more time to their child while alleviating a temporary decrease in scientific productivity. One aim is to free them from routine work that can be delegated to others, for example in the field of laboratory work, academic administration, and teaching.
Objectives
The grant funds short-term and part-time personnel support, notably for:
- assistance to help with routine tasks in the laboratory,
- administrative assistance to assume the applicant’s administrative tasks,
- assistance for teaching.
The postdoc could, for example, hire a “student assistant” to help with experiments and/or collecting data such as to accelerate the submission of scientific articles. Other types of financial support, such as prolongation of the working contract of the postdoc, are conceivable.
CScope of allocated grant
The RGG amounts to max. 20’000 CHF, and is composed as follows:
- 75% (max. CHF 15’000) from the Equal opportunity office’s fund, and
- min. 25% matching funds by the employing unit.
For laboratories with small budgets, typically those of PATT, the matching fund of the Laboratory can on request be financed by the EPFL Equal Opportunity Office.
The RGG starts after the return from maternity leave and lasts for maximum one year.
Application form
Applications must be submitted at the latest 1 month before the expected use to the Equal Opportunity Office.
Please fill in the Application Form and return it together with the following documents:
- A support letter from the Head of laboratory
- For male applicants, justification showing that his partner works at a minimum work rate of 80 % (e.g., copy of work contract or certificate of employer)
- Other annexes, (if applicable)
Pursue your career while raising a family
Flexibility grants are aimed at postdocs and doctoral students who have to look after children at an important stage in their career and are therefore in need of more flexibility. The Flexibility Grant offers researchers two options to balance their professional and private lives:
On the one hand, it can provide funding to help cover the external child care costs charged to the researcher.
On the other hand, it can be used to help finance the salary of a support person, allowing the grantee to reduce his/her work quota.
The two measures can also be combined.
You can find more information on the SNSF webiste.
Financial Support
There is the possibility of obtaining financial support for a child’s care under certain conditions, while waiting to find a place in a subsidized daycare nursery (information is available at the Equal Opportunity Office).
You have a baby of less than 18 months for whom you are the main carer in the household and plan to attend a scientific conference taking your baby along?
PhD students and postdocs at EPFL can receive up to CHF 1’500 financial support to cover travel costs (train, flight, and hotel) of a baby-sitter who accompanies them and their baby younger than 18 months at a scientific conference or on a research stay.
Alternatively, if the conference organizer offers a babysitting service which is billed to participants, the costs involved can also be covered.
Please note that the maximal amount of CHF 1’500 does not apply per event, but covers the whole period until the baby reaches 18 months.
To request the financial support, please fill the online form and send a copy of the receipts to Chantal Mellier.