Innovation Partnership Grants

Grant sum: max. 20 kCHF
Project duration: up to 12 months
Eligible partners: located in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, South Korea, Taiwan and ASEAN member states.

Goals and objectives

'Innovation Partnership Grants' support the establishment of a cooperation between Switzerland-based researchers with non-academic innovation agents in East and Southeast Asia. These agents can be corporates, SMEs or start-ups, innovation parks or similar entities with a focus on applied sciences or technical development. The goal of the innovation partnership grants is to initiate long-term partnerships with mutually beneficial concrete outcomes.

Eligibility

The call is open to all scientific disciplines and fields of research, including social sciences and humanities.

Professors, senior scientists and postdocs of Swiss federal and cantonal universities, universities of applied sciences and universities of teacher education, as well as public research institutes, are eligible to apply. Please check the eligible institutions here. The Switzerland-based scientist is the main applicant.

Note to applicants from UAS/UTE: UAS/UTE staff with research responsibility (group leaders, researchers with 5+ years of experience) and in equivalent functions are eligible to apply. If in doubt or in case you are not sure whether your position is eligible to act as a Principle Investigator (PI), please email or .

Innovation agent partners must be senior staff affiliated with a company, start-up, innovation park or similar agency in East and Southeast Asia. Universities can participate as third parties. Asian innovation agents interested in acting as co-applicants on the Asian side have to contact Switzerland-based researchers.

Application Process

The Switzerland-based applicant must apply to ETH Zurich as the Leading House Asia. The application must be submitted online with the following attachments in one single pdf document (English).

The application shall include:

• Completed research plan
• CV of Switzerland-based PI (and any co-applicants), max. 2 pages each
• CV of Asian co-applicant (and any additional co-applicants), max. 2 pages each
• Any other supporting document(s)

Applications that do not follow the instructions above will be dismissed.