CYD Fellowships 2022 Switzerland - A Talent Program for Cyber - Defence Research

Scholarship Description:

The CYD Fellowships talent program offers to fund for 6-month Master theses, 4-year PhDs, and (up to) 2-year postdocs to talented researchers of all nationalities who are willing to engage with cross-cutting issues in cyber-defense under the supervision of a professor at a Swiss higher education institution and a CYD Campus researcher.

 CYD fellows are hosted by a higher education institution in Switzerland and conduct their research at the CYD Campus – a cyber-competence center acting as an anticipation platform. The CYD Fellowships are supported by armasuisse Science and Technology.

Degree Level:

CYD Fellowships 2022 Switzerland - A Talent Program for Cyber - Defence Research is available to undertake Masters, PhD, Post Doctorate level programs at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.

• Master Thesis Fellowship (open for master students who are in the last year of their studies)
• Doctoral Fellowship
• Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship

Available Subjects:

• Novel technologies for protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of cyber and cyber-physical systems
• Privacy-enhancing technologies
• Data science and artificial intelligence methods for analysing cyber- and technology-relevant data
• Research on vulnerabilities and backdoors in digital systems.

Scholarship Benefits:

Master Thesis Fellows:

•  Living allowance equal to CHF 2’000.- per month for a maximum duration of 6 months.
• Research costs: a maximum amount of CHF 1’500 can be granted  for research costs

Doctoral/Postdoctoral fellows:

• Salary contribution (incl. social security benefits) based on the salary scale associated with the applicant’s position in the host institution.
• Research costs: A maximum amount of CHF 3’000.- per year can be granted for research costs.
• Conference costs: A maximum amount of CHF 6’000.- per year can be granted for conference costs.

Eligible Nationalities:

Students from all nationalities are eligible to apply.

Eligibility Criteria:

Master Thesis Fellows:

• No age restrictions apply.
• Applicants must be enrolled in a Master's program at a higher education institution (university or school of applied sciences) in Switzerland and have the endorsement of a professor employed in this institution willing to supervise them.

 Doctoral/Postdoctoral fellows:

• No age restrictions apply.
• Applicants must have the endorsement of a professor employed at a Swiss higher education institution willing to supervise them when they submit their Stage 2 application (see Selection Process).
• Applicants are only eligible to apply if they will conduct their postdoctoral research funded by a Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship in a different laboratory from the one of their doctoral and (if applicable) of their current postdoctoral research.

Application Procedure:

•  Stage 1  (deadline 14th February 2022) the submitted applications will be evaluated by a CYD Campus internal committee chaired by the Director of the CYD Campus, based on the following criteria: the fit of the candidate with the CYD Campus and the fit of the candidate’s pre-proposal with the aims of the program.
•  Shortlisted applicants will be assigned a prospective CYD Campus mentor. This prospective mentor will interview the applicant to determine if he or she is willing to endorse the applicant for Stage 2. Only those applicants who are endorsed by their prospective CYD Campus mentor will be able to proceed to Stage 2.

The deadline and application workshop details to be changed as follows:

Deadline for submissions: 14 February 2022 (17:00 CEST)

Applicant workshop: 25 January 2022 (10:00 – 10:45 CEST). Registration link to the event is available here.