ETH Pioneer Fellowship
Launch your own ETH Spin-off with the Pioneer Fellowship Deep-Tech or Social Impact Incubation Program.
The Pioneer Fellowship Deep-Tech Incubation Program of ETH Zürich enables entrepreneurial ETH students and researchers in developing their research-based technologies into marketable products and services to launch a successful ETH Spin-off company.
Pioneer Fellows receive up to CHF 150’000 for 18 months (12 months for a team of 2 Fellows). In addition, they get coaching, entrepreneurial training, support by your host Professor, access to ETH infrastructure and the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Funding is provided by external pageETH Zurich Foundationcall_made.
A maximum of 6 Deep-Tech Incubation Pioneer Fellowships can be granted per call.
The Pioneer Fellowship Social Impact Incubation Program of ETH Zürich empowers entrepreneurial ETH students and researchers in developing their research-based technologies into viable products and services with a social impact to successfully launch a scalable ETH Spin-off company. The Social Impact Pioneer Fellowship is awarded to projects that serve people living with less than 10 USD per day in low- and middle-income countries. All countries on the OECD DAC List 2024 are eligible (see DownloadOECD DAC-LIST 2024 (PDF, 640 KB)vertical_align_bottom).
Pioneer Fellows receive up to CHF 150’000 for 18 months (12 months for a team of 2 Fellows). In addition, they get coaching, entrepreneurial training, support by your host Professor, access to ETH infrastructure and the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
1 Social Impact Incubation Pioneer Fellowship is granted per call.
Timeline
The next application deadline is September 1, 2024 (5 pm, Swiss time).
Approximately 4 weeks after the application deadline, the candidates will be informed whether they are invited to an interview.
The interviews will take place October 24, 2024. Applicants must be available from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m on the interview day. The interview will take place in person at the ETH Zürich main building. The exact time for the approx. 30 minutes interview will be announced approximately 2-3 weeks beforehand.
Final decisions about acceptance to the Pioneer Fellowship Program will be communicated about 3 months after the application deadline.
General Information
Applications for the Pioneer Fellowship will be accepted if the following main criteria are met:
- 1-2 entrepreneurial qualified applicants who wish to commercialise results of research at ETH Zürich;
- ETH Master or Doctoral students and ETH researchers
- A company has not yet been incorporated;
- The project is fully supported by a host professor of ETH Zurich;
- A promising business case;
- for Social Impact Pioneer Fellowships only: a promising business case serving people who live with less than 10 USD per day in low- and middle-income countries. All countries on the OECD DAC List 2024 are eligible (see DownloadOECD DAC-LIST 2024 (PDF, 640 KB)vertical_align_bottom).
The applications are evaluated based on the following criteria:
- How does the application fit in with the vision, mission and objectives of the Pioneer Fellowship?
- How significant is the Pioneer Fellowship for the realization of the project?
- What is the innovation degree of the technology compared to the State-of-Art?
- Does the Technology Readiness Level meet the program requirements?
- What is the Intellectual Property situation and freedom to operate?
- Are the planned project objectives comprehensible and realistic?
- Does the market readiness level meet the program requirements?
- What is the project’s impact to society?
- Is the serviceable obtainable market large enough to sustain a future company?
- What is the quality of the application and the entrepreneurial mindset of the candidate(s)?
- What is the quality of the interview session (i.e. presentation and Q&A)?
Successful applicants will be awarded a lump sum of 150'000 CHF to cover salary costs of the applicant(s) and other expenses in support of the project. Pioneer Fellows are employed as Scientific staff of ETH Zürich (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeitende).
The Fellowship is up to 150'000 CHF, regardless of the number of applicants and level of education.
After deducting salary expenses, Pioneer Fellows may freely dispose of the residual funds for their project expenses. All expenses must be clearly dedicated to the Pioneer Fellows’ project.
Allowed expenses include e.g.:
- running costs,
- travel/field expenses and industry fairs
- tuition fee for a Certificate of Advanced Studies
Further details on allowed and not allowed expenses are listed in the guidelines.
As Pioneer Fellows are ETH employees, all intellectual property originated by them, such as patents, copyrights, models, trademarks, and so on (including new technologies, software, prototypes, etc.) is owned by ETH.
If you wish to commercialise the results from your Fellowship through your spin-off, a license agreement with ETH transfer will be negotiated, giving you rights to do so.
Application instructions
Before applying, please read the Program Regulations on this website carefully.
The applications must be submitted in the web-based ETH Zurich grant application system ‘eResearch’ .
The steps required for submission are outlined Downloadhere (PDF, 264 KB)vertical_align_bottom.
The application portal closes on Sept 1, 2024 5pm sharp. We recommend you submit your application a couple of days prior to the deadline to ensure proper processing.
Documents and naming conventions
The following documents should be submitted as part of the Pioneer Fellowship application. Templates are provided where applicable and must be used. (Note: For the Sept 1, 2024 call, templates will be provided here latest on July 1, 2024.)
All documents must be submitted as PDF files (max. 15 MB in total) unless otherwise stated. Please use the following naming conventions for your documents and do not forget to add your family name:
FamilyName_Project_Summary
FamilyName_IP_Situation
FamilyName_Applicant_CV
FamilyName_Co-applicant_CV (if applicable)
FamilyName_Publication_List
FamilyName_Support_Letter
FamilyName_Supplementary_Info
Video presentation upload
Please upload your video presentation as MP4 to the Polybox. The video should not exceed 2 minutes. Generate a link to the video and paste it into the respective field in the eResearch application tool.
Apply here for the ETH Pioneer Fellowship Deep-Tech and Social Impact Incubation Program
Note: You can apply for both programs, but can only receive one fellowship. You must apply for each program individually.
Current Pioneer Fellows
Hao Liu
Lumios
Shaping light to accelerate the development of life-saving therapies with accurate and reproducible human tissue models
Giuseppe Antoniazzi
FibroTech Solutions
Pioneering chemical probe for the early diagnosis and monitoring of fibrosis
Lukas Bircher
TALPA-Inspection
Contactless, automated, and cost-efficient corrosion inspection
Massimo Saini (Pioneer fellow), Alexander Ring, Nicola Aceto and Andreas Wicki (Co-inventors)
Captaim
CTC Apheresis for Personalized Targeted & Immune Therapy
Grace Kagho (Social Impact Pioneer Fellow)
UrbanEcho
A digital twin technology for sustainable urban planning in developing regions
Jessica Droujko
RiverLabs
Breaking down the barriers of traditional water management using novel hardware and intelligent software to create an interconnected ecosystem
Marco Francesco D'Elia
?PEIROS
Fluorescent, Recyclable and Self-?Healing Anticorrosion Coatings
Robert Axelrod (Pioneer Fellow) and Francesca Catto (co-?founder) (left to right)
IMAI (InSight)
Bringing cancer detection to new dimensions
Andreas Kourouklis
Conductive skin
Conductive skin device for power transfer to life-?saving implants
Gregor Perich (Pioneer Fellow) and Lukas Graf (co-founder) right to left
Terensis
Connecting agriculture
Edoardo Pezzulli
Sustain
Low-?cost monitoring of subsurface CO2, hydrogen and heat storage
Fabrice Bagnoud and Iwan Haechler
solabs
Solar-powered durable antifog coating
Giorgia Greter
Baxiva
Preventing urinary tract infections with a glycoconjugate vaccine
Martin Stadler
QENDRA
Providing cutting-edge classical control for atom and ion-based quantum computers, powering the quantum revolution
Kyriakos Alexandros Chondrogiannis
Builtstop
Refueling the lifespan of buildings by deploying innovative technologies to protect traditional structures
Tansel Baran Yasar
Aeternus Neurotechnologies
Next-generation ultra-flexible brain implants for stable interfacing with brain networks at single-cell resolution
Stefan Villiger (Pioneer Fellow) and Reto Togni (co-?founder) (from right to left)
Reagiro
Steering-?by-Leaning in Manual Wheelchairs
Carolina Paganini (Pioneer Fellow) and Jacob Lesinski (co-?founder) (from left to right)
Checktor Biosciences
Fighting drug resistance with point-?of-care tests
Betim Djambazi (second from left) and Pascal Auf der Maur (first from right)
RoBoa
A revolution for confined spaces rescue and inspection!
David Stark
QCSEL
Mid-?infrared lasers for portable gas sensing solutions
Paulius Viskaitis (Pioneer Fellow) and Dane Donegan (co-founder) (left to right)
smartVNS
Personalised and intelligent neurorehabilitation
Nevena Paunovi? (Pioneer Fellow) and David Klein Cerrejon (co-founder) (left to right)
OBaris
Painless alternative for delivery of injectable drugs
Fabian Schmid (Pioneer Fellow) and Murielle Schreck (co-founder) (right to left)
qCella
(re)shape heating
Julia Carpenter
Apheros
Ultra-?porous metal foams for efficient cooling
Archive of all Pioneer Fellows
Jonas Wuest and Pragash Sivananthaguru (left to right)
Tethys Robotics
Enable search, recovery and inspection missions in all waters
Host Professor: Siegwart Roland (MAVT)
Yvan Bosshard and Tiago Salzmann (left to right)
peaKFlow
Bringing the Smart to Smart Infrastructure
Host Professor: Benini Luca (ITET)
Natanael Lanz
Chiral
Next generation transistors
Host Professor: Hierold Christofer (MAVT)
Julian Senoner (co-?founder, left), Bernhard Kratzwald (Pioneer Fellow, right)
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Proactive Quality Management
Host Professor: Netland Torbjorn Hestenes (MTEC)
Bettina Thumm Müller
Citus
Ultra-??light suction device for improved skin characterization
Host Professor: Mazza Edoardo (MAVT)
Lukas B?cker and Severin Eder (left to right)
Authentic seafood analogues
Host Professor: Mathys Alexander (HEST)
Aurel Neff and Patrick Barton (left to right)
Caterra
Laser-??based weeding robot
Host Professor: Walter Achim (USYS)
Alexandre Anthis
AnastoSEAL
Smart patch, eradicating surgical leaks
Host Professor: Herrmann Inge Katrin (MAVT)
Lukas Ambühl
Transcality
Scalable digital transportation twins for cities
Host Professor: Axhausen Kay (BAUG)
Simona Fehlmann, Nicole Kleger (left to right)
sallea?
Add the third dimension to cells.
Host Professor: Studart André R. (MATL)
Mauro H?usler
Spektrum
Structural Monitoring of Rock Slopes
Host Professor: F?h Donat (ERDW)
Martin Hofmann
X14 foods
Marbled plant-?based meat analogues
Host Professor: Vermant Jan (MATL)
Philippe Bechtold (co-founder) and Michele Gregorini (left to right)
diaxxo (peakPCR)
Real-?time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR)
Host Professor: Stark Wendelin (CHAB)
Mamta Chabria
Tandem Therapeutics
Targeting diseased microenvironment in fibrosis
Host Professor: Vogel Viola (HEST)
Karl-Philipp Schlichting
Nanoporous Graphene Membranes
Host Professor: Poulikakos Dimos (MAVT)
Mandy Boontanrart
Ariya Bio: Reactivating fetal hemoglobin in B-Hemoglobinopathy patients
Host Professor: Jacob Corn (BIOL)
Dominic Jud and Burak Cizmeci (left to right)
Teleoperated and Semi-Autonomous Heavy Machinery
Host Professor: Marco Hutter (MAVT)
Marc B?chinger
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Host Professor: Nicole Wenderoth (HEST)
Tino Matter and Sebastian Loy
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Host Professor: Inge Herrmann (MAVT)
Hélène Iven and Sonia Meller (left to right)
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Host Professor: Emmanuel Frossard (USYS)
Marc Reig Escalé
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Host Professor: Rachel Grange (PHYS)
Paul Baade
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Cost-?effective battery manufacturing
Host Professor: Vanessa Wood (MAVT)
Yurena Segui Femenias
external pageDuraMoncall_made - Durability Monitoring of infrastructures
Host Professor: Ueli Angst (BAUG)
Zuzana Sediva
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Host Professor: Erich Windhab (HEST)
Alexander Tanno
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Host Professor: V?r?s Janos (ITET)
Timothy Sandy
Visible Referencing Systems
Host Professor: Marco Hutter (MAVT)
Marcel Schuck
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Host Professor: Johann Kolar (ITET)
Vanesa Natalin Rocha Martin
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Jonathan Kiefer
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Mohsen Ewaida
SnowBell
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Simon Hecker
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Christoph Schneeberger
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Cyrill Hess & Melanie Binggeli
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