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Please read the instructions and documents available on this page before submitting your application.
The projects are selected in a three-step process, with the last step being a presentation at the jury meeting. Reserve the date for the jury meeting already now.
The jury meeting for the selection of Digital Innovation Entrepreneur Fellowships will take place on 9 July 2025.
The Entrepreneur Fellowship funds can be used to pay salaries, materials and other project-related expenses. The adequate salary level depends on the education level of the applicant and on other costs expected in the project. Entrepreneur Fellows are to be employed as Scientific Assistants (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeitende). Funding obtained or requested from other sources that is related to the project must be declared.
Researchers can apply for the UZH Entrepreneur Fellowships, Digital Innovation once a year. The deadline for new applications is on April 15th, 23:59 (CET). The application window opens around one month ahead of the deadline.
The projects are evaluated in a three-stage selection process including the steps 1) eligibility check, 2) internal pre-selection and 3) interview with the jury.
UZH Entrepreneur Fellowships, Digital Innovation are awarded based on the following criteria:
To increase your chances to obtain the Entrepreneur Fellowship you should develop a strong value proposition for your innovation before you submit your application. You can join the UZH Innovation Grants program to get support to develop a quantified value proposition.
If intellectual property (IP) is core to your envisaged business case we recommend you to develop an IP strategy before submitting your application. The techtrans managers at Unitectra can help you with any questions you might have regarding preparing an invention disclosure and the IP strategy.
With your application you will submit a 3 min video. Describe your idea, which problem you aim to solve, the market potential and your motivation to bring this solution to the market. Record your video using the technology of your choice (smartphone, zoom etc.). The focus should be on how you tell your story. We want to see you, use slides only to support the argumentation.
Rejected applications may be resubmitted. However, a project and/or applicant may not re-apply for the UZH Entrepreneur Fellowships more than twice. Furthermore, the jury expects to see a substantial progress of the project and/or business case in the reapplication.
Create a profile on the submission platform and fill in your contact information. You can leave your application as a draft and make changes before finally submitting it at a later date.
The Entrepreneur fellowship has been designed to allow researchers at the UZH to fully dedicate their time to the creation of a startup based on UZH research. All persons in the project that obtain salaries from the fellowship funding are hired at the UZH and the general employment conditions apply. This also means that the rights to the research results and any intellectual property created in the course of work (including but not limited to inventions, algorithms, software, data, documents and know-how) are owned by the UZH. To commercialize such research results and intellectual
property by the startup, a license agreement between the UZH and the company need to be set up.
All details to the rights and obligations of Entrepreneur fellows can be found in the general terms.
