Solution-oriented research for development (SOR4D) programme

The SOR4D programme is open to all disciplines from the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, engineering, health and life sciences. It encourages interdisciplinary collaboration between research domains. It only funds projects involving mixed consortia of academic and practice partners and transdisciplinary set-ups.

Selected research projects will be funded for a period of three years. Projects with high potential for scaling-up, application and transformation can be funded for an additional 12 months with Transformation Accelerating Grants.

Proposals must aim for systemic and transformative solutions that simultaneously address several of the 17 SDGs. Proposals are sought in all thematic fields of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development, particularly where they relate to the four objectives of Switzerland’s international cooperation strategy:

• Contributing to sustainable economic growth, market development and the creation of decent jobs (economic development).
• Addressing climate change and its effects and managing natural resources sustainably (environment).
• Saving lives, ensuring quality basic services, especially in relation to education and healthcare, and reducing the causes of forced displacement and irregular migration (human development).
• Promoting peace, the rule of law and gender equality (peacebuilding and governance).

Only international research partnerships will be eligible to apply. A consortium must be composed of researchers and development actors from least developed, low and lower middle income countries listed by the OECD Development Assistance Committee and from Switzerland.

The research partners must demonstrate significant expertise and interest in use-inspired research as well as readiness to put research into the service of practice. The development actors are non-academic partners from practitioner organisations who are interested and involved in the societal, environmental and economic development of countries which receive international aid. They play a role in the public (government or civil society) or private sector. They contribute strongly to defining the research needs/questions, to research activities and to the dissemination and application of the research results. They must be well-connected and experienced with local, national and/or regional governmental, political, civil society or business contexts in order to ensure that the solution-oriented research addresses on-site needs and sensibilities.

The participation requirements are set out in detail in the relevant call document.

SOR4D programme call for proposals (PDF)

Submission of proposals

The applications must be submitted via the mySNF platform.

Proposals are submitted and selected in a two-stage procedure: pre-proposals are submitted first, followed by an invitation to submit a full proposal if selected in the first evaluation round. Pre- and full proposals must be written in English.

Evaluation procedure

An independent review panel, composed of experts from science and practice, is responsible for the evaluation of the pre-proposals and full proposals. The review panel forwards funding recommendations to the Programmes division of the SNSF’s National Research Council. The Presiding Board of the National Research Council makes the final funding decisions.

• SOR4D programme call document (PDF)
• General documents & downloads

International experts

• Dr. Marjolein Dieleman, Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Dr. Frank Eyhorn, Biovision Foundation for Ecological Development, Switzerland
• Selina Haeny, Publicom, Switzerland
• Dr. Kristina Lanz, Alliance Sud, Switzerland
• Prof. Priti Parikh, University College London, UK
• Dr. Smita Premchander, Sampark, Amhmedabad, Gujarat, India
• Dr. Bernadette Resurrección, Queens University, Canada
• Dr. Witness Simbanegavi, South African Reserve Bank, South Africa
• Prof. Leon Tikly, University of Bristol, England
• Prof Dzodzi Tsikata, University of Ghana, Ghana

SDC delegates

• Dr. Manfred Kaufmann, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Switzerland
• Mirjam Macchi Howell, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Switzerland

SNSF delegate and deputy (members of the National Research Council)

• Prof. Stuart Lane, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
• Prof. Martin Lengwiler, University of Basel, Switzerland (deputy)

• Mobility grants in projects
• Flexibility Grant
• Gender equality grant (only for staff members employed in Switzerland)