As part of your application, you will need an institutional support letter signed by the Unifr Rectorate. This letter has to be requested through the Unifr Grant Tool before the 15th of April 2026. 

! if you are starting your application process after the 15th of April 2026 please contact us directly as this process will need to be sped up. In such a case, we will do our best to support you but we cannot guarantee that the Unifr support letter will reach you on time.

Accessing the Grant Tool

How you access the Grant Tool will depend on your current status: 

• you are currently employed at Unifr. You can already access the Grant Tool via your my.unifr account here. 
• you are not employed at Unifr. You will first need to request access to the Grant Tool (! It might take a few days for your request to be approved). 

Requesting the support letter

You can request your Unifr support letter by following these steps: 

1. Go to this page (see "Accessing the Grant Tool" above if you do not yet have access). 
2. Select "SNSF" for the type of funding (you can leave the other fields blank). 
3. Click the "Search" button. 
4. Select "SNSF Starting Grants" in the list of results. 
5. Carefully read all of the information. 
6. Click on "Apply for a support letter". 

Once you have clicked on "Apply for a support letter", you will be presented with a form. Please enter the following information: 

• Candidate: enter your full name and select it from the dropdown menu
• Host department: select the Unifr department in which you will be conducting your project (for departments within the medecine section select "7640 - Medicine section")
• Reference person in the department: enter the name of a department member that we can reach out to if we have questions regarding your application
• Project title: enter the full title of your project (this cannot be changed later on)
• Project duration in months: enter the planned duration of your project in months (max. 60 months)
• Call deadline: the deadline of the call you are applying for (5 May 2026 for SNSF StG 2026)
• Confirmation of the rectorate
  • Download the letter template (.docx file)
  • Open it in a word editor and replace all of the highlighted parts with your own information (and delete the comment that gives further explanation regarding the employment conditions - do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions)
  • Upload your modified version of the file by clicking "Upload the completed confirmation"

Once you have finished filling out the form, click the "Send" button. At this point there is nothing else you need to do. Your request will be processed, this may take a few days. 

Next steps

A confirmation request is sent to the head of your host department. The department head approves your application by confirming the three following points: 

• they support your application
• the necessary infrastructure for the successful completion of your project is available (or will be available)
• your application is in line with the department's strategy

Once the department head has approved your application, the rectorate will sign your letter of support, and you will be able to download it directly from the Grant Tool. You will be notified by email as soon as the letter is available for download. 

Entering a budget on the SNSF portal differs from how it used to be entered on mySNF. You will find here guidelines on how to enter a budget on the SNSF Portal. 

The budget for an SNSF Starting Grant typically contains the following items: 

• Project funds: this covers your staff salaries (including social security contributions), travel costs, conference organisation, equipment, infrastructure use, data procurement, expandable items, cost of granting access to research data, etc. The maximal budget for project funds is CHF 1 million. 
• Your own salary, including social security contributions. This does not count towards the CHF 1 million project-fund limit. 

Amounts to enter on the SNSF Portal

Your own salary

Please enter CHF 152'000 per year for your own salary. A 19% social security contribution will be automatically added to this amount once you choose Unifr as your host institution.

Keep in mind that the salary indicated in your application will not be your actual salary. The exact amount will be based on your CV and calculated by the Personel Service of Unifr once your project has been approved. 

If you have children, you can request child allowances under "other social security contributions". These amount to 150 CHF per child per month up to the second child, and 75 CHF per child per month from the third child onwards. 

Project staff salary

Please enter the amounts indicated below when budgeting for your staff salaries. Unless otherwise specified, the amounts correspond to a 100% work-time equivalent (1 FTE). A social security contribution of 19% will be automatically added. 

Note that the actual salary of your staff will vary from these amounts as salaries will be calculated by the Personnel Service of Unifr based on the employee's CV. 

• PhD Student: 53'000 CHF/yr
• Postdoc (1-4 yrs after PhD): 92'500 CHF/yr
• Senior researcher (5+ years after PhD): 94'000 CHF/yr
• Junior researcher (researcher with a bachelor/master degree): 81'000 CHF/yr
• Subassistant (bachelor or master student enrolled at Unifr: 21'495.50 CHF/yr (They can only be employed max. 11 h/week, which corresponds to a 26% position))
• Laboratory technician (chemistry, biology, physics): 67'000 CHF/yr 
• Technical staff (other domains): 70'000 CHF/yr

SNSF Starting Grant info event

 Thursday 19 February  2026

 10h00 (Swiss time)

The SNSF is organizing an info event to inform applicants about the 2026 SNSF Starting Grant Call. 

More information and the registration link will follow and will be found on the SNSF StG website in January 2026. 

Guide through your StG application in the SNSF Portal

 Thursday 26 March 2026

 12h00 (midday, Swiss time)

The Research Promotion Service of Unifr is organizing a webinar to go through your StG application in the SNSF Portal with you and explain how to fill in the different data containers and avoid certain pitfalls. This webinar has proved very useful for applicants when filling in the administrative parts of their application, and we therefore encourage you to mark the time in your calendar now. 

 Please write us an email to receive the webinar link.