CYD Fellowships
The 13th call for applications is now open, with a rolling call for Master Thesis Fellowship applications and Proof of Concept Fellowship applications, and with a deadline of 25 February 2026 (17:00 CET) for Doctoral and Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship applications.
@CYD Campus
A Talent Program for Cyber-Defence Research
Cyber-threats have been accelerating due to the exponential growth of network connectivity. These new capabilities provide myriad opportunities for security hackers to wreak significant damage for commercial, political, or other gains.
CYD Fellowships are designed to promote new solutions to major challenges in the fields of security and data science by bringing together basic and applied research in cyber-defence.
The CYD Fellowships is a talent program for cyber-defence research. It offers Master Thesis, Doctoral, and Distinguished Postdoctoral fellowships to candidates with an outstanding academic and, if applicable, professional track record. 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.
The Master Thesis fellowships are on a rolling-call basis so Master students may apply any time. There are two calls per year for Doctoral and Distinguished Postdoctoral fellowships. The 13th call opened on 3 December 2025 and applicants may apply until 25 February 2026 (17:00 CET). The next call will open on 3 June 2026. Both new applications and resubmissions are encouraged.
CYD fellows are hosted by a higher education institution in Switzerland and conduct their research at the CYD Campus located on the premises of EPFL and ETHZ and in its office in Thun. The CYD Campus is a cyber-competence center acting as an anticipation platform for identifying and assessing technologies, commercial and social cyber trends, as well as the resulting usage scenarios.
Application deadline
A rolling call for Master Thesis Fellowship applications is open. Applications may be submitted throughout the year.
The 13th call is now open. The submission deadline for Stage 1 (see Selection process) is 25 February 2026 (17:00 CET).
An online applicant workshop will be held on 13 January 2026 (11:00-11:45 CET). Please register here.
Application toolkit
Please, read carefully all documents available in the application toolkit to prepare your application.
The toolkit for Master Thesis Fellowship applications is available here.
The toolkit for Doctoral and Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship applications (13th call) is available here.
Submission platform
Access the application platform here.
