NCCRs aim to strengthen Swiss research in areas of strategic importance for the future of Swiss science, business and society. The programme seeks to promote research projects of the highest quality with a particular emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches, but also on new, innovative approaches within the disciplines.
NCCRs aim at:
- improving the distribution of work among research institutions in Switzerland and at improving their international integration; in so doing, the NCCRs contribute to the creation of new research structures or the strengthening of existing ones;
- establishing a network of collaborations and partnerships between the academic and non-academic public and private sectors;
- maintaining links to the potential users of research results in order to make a contribution to knowledge and technology transfer;
- supporting talented doctoral students and postdocs as well as improving the career prospects of women in research.
Ongoing NCCRs
The Swiss National Science Foundation launched a call for the 5th series of National Centres of Competence in Research (NCCRs) in October 2017. You can find the participation requirements in the call document.
The 5th call is open to all research areas. The submitted outline proposals will be evaluated in a two-stage procedure. By September 2019 after the evaluation, the SNSF will recommend a thematically open selection of NCCR projects to the federal government - Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER) / State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) - for endorsement. Based on its research policies, the government will give proposals that reflect the goals of the Digitalisation Action Plan a high priority.
In autumn 2019, the government will decide which NCCRs to establish, and the five to six new NCCRs will subsequently start their research work in early 2020.
Fifth NCCR call
Submission of proposals
Pre-proposals and proposals for an NCCR must be submitted via the mySNF platform.
Evaluation procedure
Researchers involved in an NCCR can apply to the NCCR management directly for a mobility grant or a support grant. The SNSF will evaluate the applications approved by the NCCR management in accordance with the general requirements for these supplementary measures.