SPIRIT grants
- Duration: 2-4 years
- Maximum grant amount: CHF 500,000; minimum grant amount: CHF 50,000
- At least 30% of each grant must be allocated to Switzerland and at least 30% to the relevant partner country/countries.
- The salaries of applicants in Switzerland or abroad cannot be charged to the grant.
Applicants
- A SPIRIT pre-proposal or full proposal can be jointly submitted by a min-imum of two and a maximum of four applicants. At least one applicant must engage in research work in Switzerland, and at least one must do so in an eligible partner country.
- One of the Swiss-based applicants (the responsible applicant) represents the research team.
- The funding periods of SPIRIT grants must not overlap with those of other SPIRIT grants, or of Ambizione or PRIMA grants.
- Eccellenza grantees and SNSF professors may submit a SPIRIT application two years after starting the Eccellenza grant or SNSF professorship at the earliest.
- Swiss applicants must meet the eligibility requirements applicable to SNSF project funding. These requirements apply mutatis mutandis to applicants from abroad.
Project Funding Regulations
Partner countries
The SNSF determines the eligible partner countries based on the official list of countries receiving development assistance, which is issued by the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD.
The following countries do not qualify as partner countries:
- Member states of the European Union;
- Countries associated to Horizon 2020, the European Union's 8th Frame-work Programme for Research and Innovation (2014-2020) or subsequent programmes;
- Countries collaborating on a bilateral call with the SNSF.
List of eligible partner countries
Restrictions
- If the pre-proposal is rejected, all the applicants involved in it will be barred from submitting any further pre-proposals for 6 months as of the date of the ruling.
- If the evaluators assign the pre-proposal to one of the three lowest ranking categories out of six, all the applicants involved in it will be barred from submitting any further pre-proposals for 18 months as of the date of the ruling.
- Only one SPIRIT grant may be awarded per person.
- SPIRIT grant holders may not submit SPIRIT applications, unless the planned end date of the ongoing grant lies before the planned start date of the proposed research project.