Solar-driven chemistry 2021/2022

The international call “Solar-driven chemistry” supports basic research in all sub-areas relevant to the photochemical transformation of molecules into more valuable, storable chemicals by means of solar radiation.

Researchers from Switzerland who are interested in collaborating within the scope of international consortia are invited to submit their pre-proposals by 29 October 2021. Applicants whose pre-proposal is accepted will be informed in early February 2022 and invited to submit a full proposal. The pre-proposals and full proposals will be assessed scientifically by an international evaluation panel. All partners in a consortium are supported by the funding organisations of their respective countries.

Joint proposals can be submitted by at least two and up to four applicants located in at least two and up to four different countries participating in this call, i.e. Finland, France, Germany, Poland, Turkey and Switzerland. As the SNSF already offers the option of bilateral proposals with Germany, France and Poland under the Lead Agency/Weave agreements, these bilateral combinations are not eligible for this call. However, bilateral Finnish-Swiss and Turkish-Swiss proposals as well as any trilateral or quadrilateral proposals with Swiss participation are eligible.

Consortia that already received funding in the first Solar-driven chemistry call 2019/2020 are not eligible to apply for a second funding period. Changing the consortium by adding or substituting at least one of the principle investigators, leading to a significant thematic change in the proposal is mandatory. Proposals that did not receive funding in the first call 2019/2020 can be re-submitted, if revised.

The German Research Foundation (DFG) acts as the call secretariat, therefore all pre-proposals and full proposals must be submitted via the DFG’s “elan” submission system. Please note that all applicants need to be registered in the “elan” system. As it takes about three working days for the registration to be confirmed, please register by Monday, 25 October 2021 at the latest! The complete call text is published on the DFG website (see link below).

In parallel with the submission in the DFG’s “elan” system, Swiss applicants need to submit an administrative application to the SNSF via mySNF. Please select the “Programmes/ERA-NET: Pre-proposal” funding scheme when creating the administrative application for the pre-proposal, and “Programmes/ERA-NET” if you are invited to submit a full proposal for the second stage. The pre-proposal can be used as a template when the full proposal is created in mySNF.

Further information for Swiss applicants

Projects must comply with the SNSF Regulations on project funding (Division II). In particular, all applicants and co-applicants from Switzerland must be eligible for the funding scheme “project funding” of the SNSF.

Partners of the international project consortium who submit grant applications to funding agencies other than the SNSF cannot be declared as project partners within the meaning of article 11.2 of the SNSF Funding Regulations. They should be declared as consortium partners instead and apply for funding at their respective research funding organisations.

Article 17 of the SNSF Funding Regulations only applies in that proposals with overlapping funding periods are only approved if the research projects in the context of this call pursue different goals from any ongoing projects by the same applicants.

Article 7.3 of the SNSF Regulations on project funding applies. Swiss applicants may participate in at the most one “Solar-driven chemistry” proposal.

Grants will be managed according to the Lifetime Management Guidelines for research projects. No follow-up applications are possible.