Published on 17.04.2025

Leading Houses: New Schemes to Fund International Research Collaborations, 2025-2028


Are you interested in exploring research partnerships with colleagues in non-European countries? Then the Leading House instruments may be of interest to you. Here you can find out more about these initiatives including the testimony of a previous Leading House Grant recipient, and an overview of currently open calls. 

The Leading Houses are part of the Swiss Confederation’s bilateral programmes intended to foster research and innovation cooperation with regions that have a significant potential for scientific and technological development. In the Leading House model, selected Swiss higher education institutions receive a commission directly from the State Secretariat of Education, Research, and Innovation (SERI) to set up funding instruments to support research and innovation collaborations between Swiss researchers and various regions outside of Europe and North America. These instruments usually focus on smaller, seed funding-style grants intended to help establish research partnerships and offer opportunities for pilot projects. As most of these calls are open to early career researchers of all disciplines, this is an interesting and inclusive funding format that perhaps does not receive quite enough coverage.

Jovana Milic (Adolphe Merkle Institute and incoming Associate Professor at the University of Turku in Finland), has been the recipient of three different Leading House project grants, one each for the regions Latin America, South Asia, and Asia. These have enabled her to explore, establish, and strengthen research partnerships with colleagues in these countries with complementary research interests. When asked about the impact of this grant on her profile she stated “I appreciate the opportunity these grants provide for early-career researchers, as it has enabled us to pursue very productive international collaborations exploiting our complementary experience with a broader research impact. In addition, I value the impact of strengthening these bilateral and multilateral relationships in Switzerland that are relevant to sustainable development as well as the career development of researchers involved, and I am eager to continue to support these initiatives.“ Furthermore, Milic characterised the application process and post-award administration process as very “straightforward” and highlighted the professional support she and her team have received from the respective Leading House offices.

The next Leading House framework programme has just started and will run until 2028. Not all Leading Houses have announced the details of their upcoming calls, but we have compiled a list of what we know so far and added the relevant links below. We realise that some of the deadlines are too close now for it to be feasible to compile a proposal at this stage. We include them anyway to give you an idea of the types of calls you can expect from the Leading Houses that have not yet announced their calls for this year.

1. Leading House Latin America (HSG)

Countries covered: Argentinia, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela

Funding Instruments:

  • Research Partnership Grant (RPG): To strengthen or initiate scientific exchange between Swiss and Latin American researchers and institutions by enabling them to jointly undertake preliminary research and organise meetings, conferences, or workshops.
    • Maximum amount per project: 25k CHF
    • Project duration: 12 months
    • Deadline: April 30th 2025.
  • Scientific and Community Outreach 2025: To support former Leading House grantees' outreach efforts to facilitate the dissemination of project results to diverse audiences.
    • Maximum amount per project: 5k CHF
    • Deadline: March 30th 2025.

2. Leading House South Asia (ZHAW)

Countries covered: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Iran.

Funding instruments:

  • Connect & Collaborate Grant (CCG): As a Swiss-based researcher, you can receive up to CHF 15,000 for organizing a workshop, symposium, teaching activity, or similar initiative with partners in the countries covered by this Leading House.
    • Amount maximum per project: 15k CHF
    • Project duration: 12 months
    • Deadline: April 6th.
  • Academia-Industry Training India: For master's student, PhD student or postdoc at a Swiss federal or cantonal university, university of applied sciences, university of teacher education, research institute or centre of technological excellence, pursuing concrete business opportunities based on research.
    • Amount: 2 weeks seminary (one week in India and one week in Switzerland), plus 10k CHF for the participant showing the greatest evolvement over the course of the program.
    • Deadline: Application window will open in late spring 2025.

3. Leading House Middle East and North Africa (HES-SO)

Countries covered: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Occupied Palestinian territory, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen.

The Leading House MENA is planning to launch a call for Research Partnership Grants on May 5th, with an application deadline on August 22nd,  and funding decisions taken in November.

Alongside this regular call for projects, there is also a plan to launch a one-off instrument to support reconstruction in countries that are experiencing or have recently experienced armed conflict or crisis. The Leading House MENA is in the process of defining the contours of this call for projects in dialogue with SEFRI and will publish concrete information on this as soon as possible.

4. Leading House Africa (TPH Basel)

Countries covered: All African countries, except the for the North African region (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia) Information on specific programmes in the framework 2025 – 2028 for the Leading House AFRICA still pending.


5. Leading House Asia Pacific (UZH)

In spring of 2024, ETH Zurich informed the State Secretariat for Education, Research, and Innovation (SERI) that it would not reapply for the mandate as Leading House for the Swiss bilateral science and technology programme with East and Southeast Asia for the 2025–2028 funding phase.

SERI has just announced that the University of Zurich will manage the Leading House Asia for the next framework period and that its portfolio will be complemented by the Pacific region. For the moment no further information is available on the calls planned for the 2025-2028 period.