CYD Doctoral Fellowships will provide a salary and research and conference funds for four years (with a possible one-year extension), enabling fellows to complete a PhD thesis at the CYD Campus under the supervision of a professor at a higher education institution in Switzerland.
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.
Mission
CYD Doctoral Fellowships are open to researchers at doctoral level who are willing to engage with cross-cutting issues in cyber-defence, with a particular emphasis on:
- 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.
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.
Eligibility requirements
- 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.
Funding
Eligible costs include and are limited to:
- Salary contribution (incl. social security benefits) based on the salary scale associated with the applicant’s position in the host institution.
- 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.
Research and conference costs can be granted during the fellowship upon submission of a request with a justification for the funding.
How to apply
Please read carefully the application guidelines.
Explore the Application toolkit.
All required documents must be submitted via the online submission platform.
All documents must be submitted in English.
Deadline
The 12th call is now open. The submission deadline for Stage 1 (see Selection process) is 20 August 2025 (17:00 CEST).
Selection process
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.
In Stage 2, short-listed applicants will be required to submit a full research proposal before the submission deadline on 1 October 2025 (17:00 CEST).
Final decisions will be made by a committee chaired by the Director of the CYD Campus and composed of 3-5 members representing the CYD Campus and Swiss higher education institutions. They will be announced by end of November 2025.