Call for proposals

The IDEAS Scientific Committee and the EPFL Vice Presidency for Innovation are pleased to announce the 2022 Fifth call for proposals
  • Call document: PDF
  • IDEAS Proposal Form: Word
  • Launch: 1.6.2022
  • Deadline for the submission of proposals: 31.7.2022
  • Information on decisions by the Scientific Committee: 12.9.2022
  • Address mail for submission, using the enclosed dedicated 3 pages IDEAS Proposal Form: [email protected]

ZEISS and EPFL intend to collaborate in the field of Imaging and Digital Engineering, Application and Systems (IDEAS). To this purpose, a fund has been created to finance seed projects in fields of interest of EPFL and ZEISS.

The IDEAS fund finances seed projects of typically one year in fields defined by the scientific committee (SC) with a budget of about 100 k€. The most promising projects may then be continued by a joint research project financed either by ZEISS or by other funding.

Call targets a broad range of range of technology areas as described hereafter:

  • High Quality 3D Imaging and Data Processing
  • Smart Automated Systems
  • Multi-dimensional Visualization and Human-Machine Interaction
  • Image Simulation, Experimental Modelling and VR
  • Smart, Sustainable, Nano- and Micro-Manufacturing

Past calls

The previous IDEAS calls resulted in the funding of the following projects:

First call:

  • Learning based reconstruction methods for 3D live cell imaging with structured illumination microscopy (Prof. M. Unser)
  • Optical coherence tomography with chipscale Kerr soliton frequency combs (Prof. T. Kippenberg)
  • SPAD array for confocal microscopy (Prof. E. Charbon)

Second call:

  • WormNets: Exploring C. elegans distributed functional networks using whole-animal 3D light microscopy (Prof. D. Van de Ville)
  • Phase Retrieval Instrument with Super-resolution Microscopy (PRISM) (Prof. A. Radenovic)
  • Adaptive illumination for optimal (super-resolution) microscopy (Prof. S. Manley)
  • Super High sensitivity and dynamic range versatile camera for scientific and time resolved imaging (Dr Boukhayma)

Third call:

  • InnoTools (Prof. C. Baur)
  • AI-based Training of Robots for Surgical Tasks (Prof. A. Billard)
  • Robust Verification and Uncertainty Estimation with Deep Neural Networks (Prof. V. Cevher)