11th Call for Proposals - Cyber-Defence (CYD) Fellowships
© 2024 EPFL
Cyber-threats have been accelerating due to the exponential growth of network connectivity. These new capabilities provide myriad opportunities for security hackers to wreak significant damage for commercial, political, or other gains.
To promote research and education in cyber-defence, EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, and the Cyber-Defence (CYD) Campus have jointly launched the “CYD Fellowships – A Talent Program for Cyber-Defence Research.” There are two calls per year and the eleventh call is now open.
CYD Fellowships are designed to promote new solutions to major challenges in the fields of security and data science by bringing together basic and applied research. They are open to researchers at master, doctoral, or postdoctoral level who are willing to engage with innovative issues in cyber-defence, with a particular emphasis on:
- Protection of confidentiality, integrity, and availability of cyber and cyber-physical systems.
- Information sharing, data fusion and crowdsourcing.
- Data science & AI methods for analysing cyber- and technology-relevant data.
- Security, privacy and digital trust technologies.
By encouraging the training of the next generation of leading researchers in Switzerland, the CYD Fellowships will accelerate the development of cyber security and privacy solutions, improving defenders’ capabilities vis-à-vis attackers. In fostering synergies between university-based researchers and cyber-defence stakeholders and promoting the testing of new solutions, they will increase the competitiveness of the Swiss cyber-defence community.
Funding is available for six-month CYD Master Thesis Fellowships (living allowance and research funds); four-year (with a possible one-year extension) CYD Doctoral Fellowships (salary and research and conference funds); and up to two-year CYD Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowships (salary and research and conference funds). CYD fellows are hosted by a higher education institution in Switzerland and conduct their research at the CYD Campus located on the premises of EPFL and ETHZ and in its office in Thun.
The CYD Proof-of-Concept fellowship program aims to support applied research leading towards an innovative product or service with the intention of making a real impact and evaluating the potential for commercialization of such products or services.
The CYD Campus is a cyber-competence center created by the Swiss Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport. It acts as an anticipation platform for identifying and assessing technologies, commercial and social cyber trends, as well as the subsequent usage scenarios. It is committed to innovative, application-oriented research and works to translate research findings into solutions alongside start-ups and the established companies in the field of security.
The CYD Fellowships are supported by armasuisse Science and Technology.
The eleventh call for proposals is now open with a rolling call for Master Thesis Fellowship applications and CYD POC fellowship applications, and with a deadline for Doctoral and Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship applications on 26 February 2025 (17:00 CET). For more details, please visit the CYD Fellowships website.
An online applicant workshop will be held on 21 January 2025 from 11:00 to 11:45 CET.
For additional questions, please contact the Research Office via [email protected].