183 mobility fellowships and return grants for postdocs
The SNSF has awarded a total of 22.6 million Swiss francs to 183 postdocs to finance their research projects abroad or facilitate their return to Switzerland.
Amid the rising prevalence of mental health challenges around the world, Benedikt Wicki's project is in line with the growing focus on research into their prevention. In Aarhus, Denmark, Wicki will be developing an index to assess how mental health is affected by restorative environments, which are free of stressors such as noise and air pollution and conducive to wellbeing factors such as access to nature and leisure facilities. He will also analyse the role of socio-economic inequality in this context. The results of this innovative study based on the Danish population could contribute to the design of health-promoting and equitable urban planning and underscore the importance of prevention in psychiatry.
Benedikt Wicki is one of the 183 postdoctoral researchers who have been awarded an SNSF fellowship to finance their research project abroad or facilitate their return to Switzerland. The SNSF has allocated 22.6 million Swiss francs for this mobility funding scheme.
Record number of requests
The August 2024 call set a new record with 466 submitted applications. A total of 142 mobility fellowships and 41 return grants were awarded, representing a success rate of 35 per cent for mobility fellowships and 71 per cent for return grants.
The SNSF Career Tracker Cohorts (CTC) study showed that returning to Switzerland and remaining in an academic environment can be complicated after a Postdoc.Mobility fellowship. To remedy this situation of uncertainty, the SNSF has decided to increase the success rate of return grants. This measure should also enable grantees to reintegrate into the Swiss health insurance system after their stay abroad.
In total, 183 scientists, 45 per cent of whom are women, have received support for their research projects. These grants provide postdoctoral researchers with contributions towards their living costs as well as a flat rate to cover travel expenses and, if applicable, research and conference costs.
Go abroad with Postdoc.Mobility and come back to Switzerland with a return grant
After her two-year Postdoc.Mobility stay in Paris and Lyon, Julie Humbert-Droz will return to Switzerland to continue her research at the University of Geneva with the support of a return grant. In Geneva, she will complete the project that she began in France on the terminology of endometriosis. Though the disease affects one in ten women, it remains little known and beset by negative representations. Her research examines how non-specialists and patients perceive terms related to endometriosis, with the objective of improving communication and raising awareness about the disease. In her project, which is as topical as it is original, Julie Humbert-Droz adopts a corpus linguistics and textual terminology approach, comparing and analysing different corpora that play a major role in disseminating endometriosis-related terms, including press articles, forums and social networks as well as patients’ associations.
Corin Jorgenson is heading to Glasgow, Scotland, to study the explosive eruption of mafic magma, an anomalous type of volcanic eruption. While these low-silica, low-viscosity rocks typically erupt as lava flows, they can quickly and without warning lead to dangerous explosive eruptions. Corin Jorgenson's project aims to understand the causes of this phenomenon using an innovative approach that combines natural 3D data from mafic volcanoes and 4D laboratory experiments. A better understanding of the conditions responsible for explosive mafic eruptions should help to improve monitoring efforts and mitigate the risks worldwide.