Swiss Nanotechnology PhD Award
The Swiss Micro- and Nanotechnology Network is offering three prizes of CHF 2,000 each for excellent scientific first-author publications in the field of Nanotechnology and Nanoscience published by PhD students in 2025/2026.
Sponsored by:
The prizes will be awarded during the Swiss Nanoconvention 2026, which will take place as a special session of the MNE 2026 Conference (Micro-Nano Engineering 2026, Interlaken, Switzerland).
Requirements
The work must have been conducted at a Swiss university or research institute and written as an English-language manuscript.
The manuscript must have appeared, at least online, in a peer-reviewed journal between January 2025 and June 2026.
Application Documents
The application must include:
- A nomination letter from the PhD advisor, maximum one page.
- A curriculum vitae of the PhD student, including activities and publications, maximum two pages.
- A short summary explaining the importance of the work, maximum half a page.
- A PDF copy of the published manuscript.
All PDF files listed above must be merged into a single PDF document named after the PhD student.
The complete application must be submitted by email no later than 15 August 2026 to:
Dr. Lorenz Herrmann
Head of Department “Advanced Materials and Surfaces”
Member of the Directorate
Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology
Überlandstrasse 129
8600 Dübendorf
Switzerland
lorenz.herrmann@empa.ch
Prize Committee
- Prof. Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser, Adolphe Merkle Institute, University of Fribourg
- Prof. Christian Schönenberger, formerly Swiss Nanoscience Institute, University of Basel
- Prof. Esther Amstad, EPFL Lausanne
- Prof. Tobias Lamprecht, OST – Ostschweizer Fachhochschule
- Dr. Sylvain Nicolay, CSEM, Neuchâtel
- Dr. Andreas Hafner, formerly BASF Schweiz AG, Dübendorf
- Dr. Lorenz Herrmann, Empa, Dübendorf
Communication of the Prize
The prize winners will be presented on the website of the Swiss Micro- and Nanotechnology Network.
The awards will be presented by representatives of the sponsor companies during the Swiss Nanoconvention 2026, taking place on 24 September 2026 as part of the MNE 2026 Conference in Interlaken.