E4D Doctoral Scholarships

Engineering for Development (E4D) Doctoral Scholarship Programme

The goal of the Engineering for Development (E4D) Programme is to promote research and education for people in low-income countries.

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

The grant sum is 200'000 CHF to cover the salary costs of the doctoral students for three years. ETH professors cover the 4th year of the doctoral studies as well as costs related to the research itself.

Please refer to the Download Eligibility and Criteria document (PDF, 236 KB) before applying.

For more information about finding a supervisor, see this page.

The call for E4D Doctoral Scholarship applications is currently closed. The next call will open in November 2024.

The Download general entrance requirements (PDF, 1.2 MB) for doctoral studies at the ETH Zurich and the respective department must be fulfilled.
Experience in the selected research area is required.
Applicants should be citizens of low- middle-income countries according to the external page OECD DAC-2024-2025 list. Applications from least-developed, lower-income, and lower-middle income countries will take priority.

The doctoral supervisor must be an ETH professor and must have a guaranteed ETH position for the entire duration of the proposed project. Candidates may be co-supervised by advisors at at a Federal Research Institute (Eawag, Empa, PSI, & WSL), but they must also have an advisorship from a professor at ETH Zurich.
It is expected that the ETH Zurich professor supports the candidate in elaborating the full proposal, if the concept note should be selected, and to supervise the candidate, if the full proposal is selected for funding.
The supervisor confirms their commitment to the project by a letter of support, indicating their financial contribution to the project.

The research topic is within the thematic scope of ETH Zurich.
The proposal is a new doctoral project, not complementary funding to an on-going research.
Subject of the proposed research is the development of methods, technologies, tools or products, which generate a direct impact for underprivileged people in low-income countries.
The ecological, socio-economic and cultural context is taken into account.

Projects involving research partners from a low-income country must be based in the external page KFPE Principles for Transboundary Research Partnerships.
All partners are involved in project formulation and development.
All partners make a substantial in-kind or cash commitment.
The project is integrated in the general activities of the involved institutions.
Projects must include partners from countries on the external page OECD DAC-2024-25list.

Submission of the Download Concept Note Application Form 2024 (PDF, 127 KB) to the E4D programme office by e-mail to . Only concept notes fulfilling all indicated requirements will be taken into consideration. Please note that ETH4D is unable to provide matchmaking services between professors and potential scholarship applicants.

Application Documents

The concept note application must include:

Completed Download Concept Note Application Form 2024 (PDF, 127 KB)
CV of the candidate
Excellent MSc degree from a recognised university and grade transcripts
Support letter of the supervising professor at ETH Zurich
2 reference letters from your field of research
Relevant own publications or documentation of relevant activities relating to the project
List of 5 independent reviewers (same field of research, but unknown to candidate and professor)
Bibliography

Please refer to the Download Eligibility and Criteria Document (PDF, 236 KB) before applying.

New ETH4D Doctoral Fellowship for Global Impact

After 10 years of successful operation, the E4D Doctoral Scholarship Programme will begin a new phase in 2024.

The programme supports doctoral students from low- and middle-income countries to work on innovations at ETH that have the potential to improve the lives of people in poor and fragile regions.

Fellows have excellent prospects of becoming leaders in sustainable development by taking up important positions in industry, policy or academia, or by putting research into practice through entrepreneurship.

Mr. Samih Sawiris and some of the E4D fellows met at ETH Zurich, 30 October 2017.

The E4D Fellows 2023

We are happy to introduce you to E4D´s Doctoral Fellows 2023: Karma Sherub from Bhutan and Tamirat Haile from Ethiopia. Karma strives to find solutions for mitigating human-wildlife conflict in Bhutan to protect agricultural sites and wildlife alike. Tamirat is set on developing a drought-prediction forecast model for the Horn of Africa.