USI's new measures to support excellence in research

To further strengthen our university’s research ecosystem and to support our researchers in turning successful projects into impactful outcomes, the Prorectorate for research is pleased to announce a set of new measures designed to strengthen research excellence and expand USI capacity to secure competitive funding at the national, European and international level. These initiatives align with the university’s ongoing objectives of empowering researchers to develop ambitious projects, helping young researchers lay the foundations for a successful academic career, supporting the development of Open Science and Open Research Data principles and practices, increasing success rates in competitive funding applications, and gaining protected time and resources to advance high-quality research.

These actions reflect USI's commitment to invest in researchers across all career stages: (1) a USI-funded call for projects featuring multiple funding schemes tailored to early-career researchers as well as faculty; (2) a new research incentive programme for researchers who seek third-party funding, combining financial rewards with targeted teaching-load relief; and (3) the strengthening of the grant writing support service offered to the research community.

Fondo Istituzionale per la Ricerca (FIR)

In 2026, USI relaunches the Fondo Istituzionale per la Ricerca (FIR) as a coordinated, strategic framework to support research and development within the University. The renewed FIR consolidates several funding instruments under a single umbrella, including the integration of the Open Science and Open Research Data (OS-ORD) call, previously funded through a separate scheme.

The FIR 2026 includes several complementary calls: USI Doctoral Mobility, supporting PhD candidates through international mobility opportunities; Young Researchers, aimed at fostering the independence and career development of early-stage researchers; and USI Preparatory Grants for ERC, designed to strengthen the preparation of competitive ERC proposals.

With this relaunch, FIR aims to support researchers at key stages of their academic careers, providing a coherent, structured funding framework to strengthen USI's research capacity and competitiveness. The initiative is intended to become a regular annual appointment within the University's research support strategy.

Incentives

Introducing an incentive programme is important for encouraging the acquisition and supporting the management of competitive, third-party-funded research projects at USI in the coming years. Declining success rates for major competitive calls for proposals and the new SNSF policies on project submissions, resulting from federal budget cuts, make it essential to strengthen support for grant‑seeking efforts. A clear incentive system also provides guidelines to ensure the fair and consistent treatment of researchers who secure above‑average, highly competitive research funding.

Research incentives apply exclusively to projects submitted in response to competitive research calls; allocation is based on available funding and is granted to researchers listed as the project lead or co-lead. With the new incentive programme, three types of measures are introduced: pre-award financial incentives (distributed upon submission of the project), post-award financial incentives (distributed upon project approval), and post-award teaching incentives (intended as teaching buyout upon project approval). The new research incentive scheme is set out in detail in the directive dedicated to funded projects (link)

Grant writing service

To face the increased competitiveness of research funding programmes, at both national and European level, starting from the second half of 2026, USI is ramping up its grant application support service to also offer grant writing feedback and training. This service will be provided to both early-career and experienced researchers, on a first-come, first-served basis, with priority given to applications for strategic instruments: European Research Council (ERC), Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Starting Grants, and European collaborative projects coordinated by USI.

Contact [email protected] to learn more.