Open Science grants

Upcoming calls
This list is regularly updated. If you know of other calls not cited here, feel free to send us an email at [email protected] and we’ll add it to the list!
Best practices and infrastructure

Deadline: March 31st 2023, 5PM CET
ETH Domain Open Research Data (ORD) program – Contribute Call 4

Submissions anytime
Open Access publications in scientific Journals, books and book chapters

Deadline: May 31st 2023
Call for Open Access projects: Setting up of shared services, participation to international initiatives, alternative forms of publications, research assessment

Deadline: June 2nd 2023
Track A : Explore projects 3

Deadline: August 2nd 2023
Track C: Contribute Call 2
OS-friendly calls

Submissions anytime
Information and Communications Technology
Crowdfunding

Submissions anytime
Submit your projects to the crowdfunding platform wemakeit.com
Our friends who fund Open Science
You will find below funding entities who often provide calls for OS-related projects.

The Swiss Open Research Data Grants program is jointly organized by ETH Domain and Swissuniversities. It aims to support ORD practices across disciplines and higher education institutions in Switzerland, with a focus on creating synergies and complementarities. EPFL applicants can apply through both paths, with the ETH Domain path being used for evaluation if a call is open via both organizations at the same time.
Explore projects allow early phase exploration, testing and prototyping of what an ORD practice could be like. They will enable starting to engage with a community without necessarily building up something definitive. The aim is to help our researchers to explore if ORD practices can be developed and how.
The overall budget must not exceed 150kCHF. This is the total cost of the project (including in-kind contributions), not the amount of funding the applicants will receive.
Duration: up to 18 months. All applicants must start working on the project within 6 months of its approval.
Applications are done via the EPFL Application portal.
Find more information here.
Next deadline: late 2023 / early 2024
This call is aimed at early-phase exploration as well as the testing and prototyping of a potential ORD practice. It allows for engagement with a community without necessarily creating a final product. The objective is to help researchers explore if and how ORD practices can be developed.
Duration: up to 18 months, max. until the end of 2024.
The total cost of the project must not exceed 150kCHF.
Next deadline: Early 2024
Find more information here.
This call enables researchers to contribute to existing open communities built on ORD principles, validate their integration into existing infrastructures (also on an international scale), and focus on their potential to improve scientific impact and technical quality.
The total cost of the project is 30kCHF.
Next deadline: every 4 months (end of March, July, November, please check this page for the details)
Applications are done via the EPFL Application portal.
Please access the application guidelines and templates here.
Project proposals must not exceed 6 pages excluding bibliography.
This call enables researchers to contribute to existing open communities built on ORD principles, validate their integration into existing infrastructures (also on an international scale), and focus on their potential to improve scientific impact and technical quality.
The total cost of the project must not exceed 30kCHF.
Find more information here.
The purpose of this call is to fund proposals that provide tools – including software, hardware, protocols, standards, benchmarks, documentation and training materials, networking, educational facilities and resources – to enable, facilitate, and promote the sharing of research data based on ORD principles.
Duration: up to 18 months, max. until the end of 2024.
The total cost of the project must not exceed 150kCHF.
Find more information here.

No open call at the moment
The CHIST-ERA Open Research Data Call tackles the challenge of Open & Re-usable Research Data & Software from the perspective of the possible reuse of data, with the objective of creating the conditions for research in any domain based on open or shared data and software.

The Hasler Foundation promotes information and communications technology (ICT) for the well-being and benefit of Switzerland as an intellectual and industrial centre. The Foundation aims to play an active role in ensuring that Switzerland continues to take a leading position in science and technology in the future.
The Foundation funds or co-funds selected educational, research and innovation projects and undertakings in the field of ICT.
Research projects can be submitted at any time.

No open call at the moment.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) funds a variety of projects related to open science. Some examples include:
- Support for open-access publishing and data sharing in the scientific community
- Development of new tools and technologies to improve scientific collaboration and data sharing
- Programs to increase diversity and inclusion in the scientific workforce
- Funding for open-source software development to support scientific research
- Support for the creation of new scientific commons and the sharing of knowledge and resources.

The Simons Foundation is a private philanthropic foundation that supports scientific research and education, particularly in the fields of mathematics, theoretical physics, and theoretical computer science. It also funds research in the life sciences and autism research.
Next deadline: 8.03.2023

The SNSF has available grants to fund Open Access publications in scientific Journals, books and book chapters.
More information about the SNSF Open Access policy
For publications from projects funded by SNSF grants, the Foundation supports researchers in making their articles freely available without limitations or delays by paying the Article Processing Charges (APCs) in peer reviewed journals.
The SNSF supports finances the publication of scientific books that are freely accessible without limitations or delays. Book Processing Charges are awarded for scientific publications regardless of whether the underlying research results were obtained in research projects funded by the SNSF or not.
Peer-reviewed monographs (including dissertations, habilitations, legal commentaries and editions) and anthologies qualify for funding. The cost of publisher services for quality control, book production and distribution are covered by a book processing charge (BPC).
The SNSF finances book chapters that result from an SNSF-funded research project and are published in a peer-reviewed open access anthology.
Coverage of publication fees can be requested as book chapter processing charges (BCPCs).

Citizen participation can also drive scientific progress: small projects can get funded through the crowdfunding platform wemakeit.com and receive a matching grant (Science Booster) from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) up to a maximum of 5,000 CHF.
Past funding calls

The EPFL Presidency dedicated a total of CHF 3 Mio over the period 2019-2021 to promote open and reproducible research at EPFL through the bottom-up adoption of best practice in research management and knowledge dissemination.
Several EPFL teams were awarded grants in 2018 and 2019 to develop OS projects