Engineering for Development (E4D) Doctoral Scholarships 2020 Zurich Switzerland

The Engineering for Development (E4D) doctoral scholarships promote doctoral research for the benefit of underprivileged people in low-income countries. It awards two doctoral scholarships per year and promotes innovative projects that are directly relevant for improving the livelihoods of underprivileged people in low-income countries.

The grant sum is 175’000 CHF to cover the salary costs of the doctoral students for three years.

The E4D Programme is generously funded through the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

Requirements

High English proficiency level is necessary
Maximum age: 40 years
Excellent MSc Degree and high academic performance is necessary
ONLY contact an ETH professor with a concrete project idea

Funding

The E4D doctoral scholarship is CHF 175’000 for a period of three years. The scholarship period can be extended on a no-cost extension. Out of the scholarship grant, CHF 166’800 is reserved to cover the salary of the E4D Fellow for three years (level of employment: 100%, incl. social security), CHF 8’200 for material costs and/or travels.

Employment after the granted time period must be financed by other sources.
The doctoral salary must be on the level of the ETH standard doctoral salary4.
Adjustments of the salary scale might be made in adherence to the general ETH Domain remuneration policy as defined by the ETH Board.

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Any extra costs associated with salary scale increases effected during the funding period must be borne by the host professorship.

Application procedure

The application procedure consists of two steps.

First step
The candidate submits a concept note to the E4D programme office by e-mail to Ms. Patricia Heuberger (patricia.heuberger@sl.ethz.ch).

The deadline for submitting concept notes is 30 April 2020. Only concept notes fulfilling all indicated requirements will be taken into consideration and will be evaluated by the ETH4D Committee for Exchanges with regard to their suitability for an E4D Scholarship.

Second step
Candidates whose concept note is accepted by the ETH4D Committee for Exchanges
elaborate a full proposal together with the professor who agreed to supervise the
project. If the candidate and the professor do not know each other, they must set up a meeting to discuss the full proposal elaboration. This meeting is either a face-to-face meeting or a skype meeting.

Deadline for submission of full proposals is 31 August 2020.