Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships: Funding for European Researchers

What the scholarship pays

The Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships , run by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI), pay a monthly stipend of 2,450 CHF to PhD researchers and art scholarship holders. The scholarship also arranges health insurance for your stay. It is built for early-career researchers, not for funding a first Bachelor's degree.

A separate art scholarship line funds students starting a first Master's degree in an artistic field at a Swiss art school, but only for applicants from a restricted list of countries that SERI sets each year, unlike the broader research track described above.

Who qualifies

You need to be under 35 years old and to have already completed a Master's degree to apply for the research track. Applicants pursue postgraduate research at a Swiss university, one of the federal institutes of technology (ETH Zurich or EPFL), or an ETH Domain research institute, and you need a Swiss academic supervisor lined up before you apply, since your research project has to connect to a specific institution and professor.

Who reviews and decides

The Federal Commission for Scholarships (FCS) evaluates every application on your academic profile, the quality of your proposed research, and how well it fits with your named Swiss supervisor's work. This is a competitive, merit-based process rather than a need-based grant, so a strong, specific research proposal matters more than financial circumstances.

How the embassy nomination process works

You do not apply to SERI directly. Instead, you submit your application through the Swiss diplomatic representation, the embassy or consulate, in your home country. Each country's Swiss embassy manages its own local application window and initial screening before forwarding shortlisted applications to the FCS in Bern for final selection. Because of this, your exact deadline and required documents vary slightly depending on where you apply from, so check with your local Swiss embassy alongside the SERI overview page.

Not every country has an open quota every year. SERI publishes the current list of eligible countries and any specific conditions for each one, so confirm your country is included in the current round before you invest time preparing a full application.

Timeline for the next round

The application period for the scholarship round starting in the 2027-2028 academic year opens on 20 August 2026, run through the embassy channel described above. Award decisions are announced by the end of May the following year, giving successful applicants several months to plan a move to Switzerland before the academic year starts in autumn.

Watch out for scams

SERI has publicly warned about fraudulent scholarship offers sent by email and through social media that imitate the real programme. The genuine application process never asks you to pay a fee for visa processing, insurance, or any other step, so treat any request for payment as a red flag regardless of how official it looks.

Why it fits European researchers specifically

For European applicants, the scholarship offers full research funding at Swiss institutions that rank among the strongest in the world for STEM and applied research, without needing separate university-level funding on top. If your home country has an active quota, the embassy route is more predictable than trying to find a Swiss university-level scholarship independently, since the national quota system spreads places across many countries rather than concentrating them at a handful of universities.