International International

Seed Fund

Since 2013, the University of Geneva has run a seed funding program to encourage international collaborations in research and teaching. These funds have often acted as a lever enabling recipient teams to subsequently obtain significant external funding.

Between 2013 and 2025, this seed funding scheme has financed almost 240 projects through 49 annual or bi-annual calls for projects under the “Strategic Partnerships” program, including 8 bilateral strategic partnerships and 2 institutional alliances (G3 de la Francophonie and Alliance campus rhodanien).

After more than 10 years of the Strategic Partnerships program, the University of Geneva is embarking on a new dynamic with a new Seed Fund program that is more open and non-exclusive vis-à-vis any given institution. UNIGE members will thus be able to benefit from these funds for a collaborative project with the institution(s) of their choice, by demonstrating the importance of the project for their unit.

The practical details of the new Seed Fund program will be finalized during the summer of 2025, enabling the program to be launched at the start of the 2025-2026 academic year.

Archives: the list of projects funded between 2013 and 2025 can be consulted here: unige-cofunds.ch

The two alliances of which UNIGE is a founding member continue their activities through bi-annual calls for projects:

  • G3 de la Francophonie (with Université Libre de Bruxelles and Université de Montréal), which brings together three comprehensive French-speaking universities with a non-European dimension;
  • Alliance campus rhodanien (with the University of Lausanne, the University of Grenoble Alpes, the University of Lyon and the University of Savoie Mont Blanc), which focuses on the development of cross-border collaborations at regional level.