ENAC Innovation Seed Grants

Call for proposals 2024 – will open soon

The Innovation Seed Grant is a unique seed funding opportunity (max. 20kCHF) to encourage innovation and technology transfer at ENAC, to stimulate researchers to think across boundaries and envision all-encompassing sustainable innovative solutions to critical societal problems. The grant should help laboratories to explore very early on their innovation ideas and technologies and to support ENAC graduate students and researchers, including PhD students and Post docs, in the initial phase of developing an application, product or service with a real societal impact. We want to give you a first opportunity, for example through coaching, workshops or mission trainings, to validate your project idea and get ready for future innovation funding programs at EPFL such as the EPFL VPA enable grants and/or VPI Ignition grants or Innogrants.

There are no restrictions on the application areas of research as long as the product or service development feasibility and applicability can be demonstrated and contribute to sustainable innovative solutions.

Please check the eligibility requirements and evaluation criteria for this call in the Guide for Applicants (see Applicant toolkit).

Timeline

Proposals can be submitted to one of the two 2024 deadlines:

  • First deadline: May 15, 2024
  • Second deadline: September 10, 2024

Earliest project start: July 1, 2024 or October 1, 2024

How to submit

We recommend PIs to contact as soon as possible the ENAC innovation managers (see below). They can help the applicant to get an optimal understanding of the mission of the call, to discuss the project objectives, to explore the innovation potential of the project and to refine the proposal idea before submission.

  • Proposals should be submitted to one of the 2024 deadlines at [email protected]
  • Please read the Guide for applicants and use the provided template (see toolkit)

Contact

For any questions or for expressing your interest in the call, do not hesitate to contact us!

[email protected]
Frédéric Dreyer (Innovation and Ecosystem manager) – 021 693 32 33
Charlotte Vandenberghe (Call coordinator) – 021 693 76 15