QSE Collaborative Research Fellowships
Upper-left: Christophe Galland / Upper-right: Shutterstock / Bottom-left: Edoardo Charbon / Bottom-right: Nicolas Macris
QSE Collaborative Research Fellowships
The mission of the EPFL Center for Quantum Science and Engineering (QSE) is to foster outstanding scientific research in the QSE domain. Producing groundbreaking scientific discoveries in quantum science, and developing cutting-edge quantum technologies requires the combined efforts of scientists from computer science, engineering, and basic sciences. The QSE Center encourages and supports these collaborations, with the goal of creating cross-disciplinary research initiatives that will move boundaries in the QSE domain.
To pursue this goal, the QSE Center is funding QSE Collaborative Research Fellowships to support outstanding young researchers to be hired as postdoctoral fellows.
The call for proposals is now closed (the application deadline was Friday 28 January 2022).
The QSE Collaborative Research Fellowship is intended to support outstanding young researchers to be hired as postdoctoral fellows. The fellows will work on research projects that explicitly need a cross-expertise approach and that are high risk/high gain in nature. This fellowship program is thus designed to foster novel collaborative research efforts, which will explore new ideas and concepts, cross-fertilizing different foci of research.
- Applications must involve at least two investigators from two EPFL research groups affiliated with two among the three EPFL Schools of IC, STI, and SB.
- Applicants must be employed as professors, senior scientists (maîtres d’enseignement et de recherche – MERs) for the full duration of the project. Excellenza or PRIMA fellows or ERC Starting Grant holders who are employed by EPFL for the full duration of the project (2 years) can also apply.
- Applicants who are not financially independent must include a letter of commitment from their head of unit.
- Applicants may only submit one application as either responsible applicants or co-applicants, and they may only apply for the 2021 QSE Collaborative Research Fellowship or the 2021 QSE Tech-Transfer Fellowship.
- Each laboratory may only have one running QSE Fellowship (of any kind).
- Applicants may request up to CHF 200’000 per project for two-year projects.
- The funding serves to hire an incoming postdoctoral researcher for a maximal duration of two years.
- Research costs include and are limited to consumables, direct costs of infrastructure use, open research data costs, open access publication costs, expenses of third parties, as well as travel, conference, and workshop costs.
- Applicants must jointly provide an additional 25% contribution in cash from their own resources (reserves or annual budget).
- No overheads shall be paid on the direct costs of the QSE Collaborative Research Fellowship.
Please read carefully the “Application guidelines“.
All required documents must be submitted via the online submission platform.
All documents must be submitted in English.
The application deadline was Friday 28 January 2022 (17:00 CEST).
Each application will be evaluated by three external experts based on criteria of excellence, impact, and implementation. The final decision will be made by the Scientific Committee of the QSE Center, chaired by Vincenzo Savona, and comprising EPFL professors.
Decisions will be announced in early March 2022, and granted applicants will have to start their project within six months of the notice of the award, i.e., on 1 September 2022 at the latest.
The responsible PI needs to present the candidate for the postdoctoral fellowship to the scientific committee for approval before hiring and before the funding will be granted.