PhD Opportunities in Biology in Switzerland

The Department of Psychology at the University of Zurich invites applications for a four-year PhD position in psychiatric neuroscience, focused on functional brain organization in autism. Led by Dr. Dorothea Floris, the project investigates individual differences in brain network organization in autism using precision functional mapping, computational approaches, and large-scale longitudinal resting-state fMRI datasets. The doctoral researcher will examine how functional brain organization varie...

The University of Zurich is advertising more than 25 fully funded PhD positions across a broad range of research areas. The opportunities are based in Zurich, Switzerland, and are offered as paid positions rather than as a single scholarship programme. Fields represented in the listings include life sciences, medicine, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, astrophysics, and the social sciences and humanities. The breadth of the call may suit applicants seeking doctoral research in biomedical an...

EPFL is offering a full-time PhD position in the Laloui Group in Lausanne, Switzerland, within the SNSF-funded DFabuLis project, “Digital Fabrication Using Living Systems.” The project is conducted with Dr. Dimitrios Terzis, Senior Scientist in the Laloui Group at EPFL, and co-PI Prof. Benjamin Dillenburger of the Chair of Digital Building Technologies at ETH Zurich. The research explores how biologically driven mineralization can transform demolition and excavation materials into granular mater...

The University of Basel is offering a PhD position in the Plant Microbe Interactions research group within the Department of Environmental Sciences. The project examines how complex soil microbiomes influence plant growth and defence, with a focus on the genetic and immune mechanisms that allow some plant genotypes to benefit from particular microbiome communities. As part of the Swiss National Science Foundation project “Decoding plant growth in response to complex soil microbiomes” , the docto...

The University of Zurich is offering a fully funded PhD position at the Spinal Cord Injury Center of University Hospital Balgrist. The project, “Enhancing reticulospinal plasticity through paired stimulation to promote functional recovery after incomplete spinal cord injury,” focuses on developing innovative neurorehabilitation strategies for people with incomplete spinal cord injury. The research examines the reticulospinal pathway, an important neural system involved in motor recovery after sp...

The University of Bern is offering a PhD position in the multicenter project PRECISE-MDD , investigating precision treatment selection in major depressive disorder. The study is a triple-blind randomized controlled trial examining whether EEG- and ECG-based biomarkers can predict the therapeutic effects of antidepressants, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, ketamine and electroconvulsive therapy in patients with unipolar depression. At the Bern study center, the doctoral researcher wi...

This PhD project is hosted in the Laloui Group at EPFL in Lausanne and is carried out within the SNSF-funded project DFabuLis: Digital Fabrication Using Living Systems . The research sits at the intersection of geomaterials, material science, and engineering applications, focusing on how biologically driven mineralization can be used to transform demolition and excavation materials into feedstocks for digital fabrication under ambient conditions. The doctoral researcher will investigate the coup...

This PhD project at EPFL’s SCI-ENAC-AS group, Nanotechnology for Solar Energy Conversion , focuses on the numerical modeling and design of plasmonic crystals for solar-energy-related applications. The advertised research is part of the SNSF project “Coupled oscillations in plasmonic crystals” , which investigates how plasmonic oscillations couple in metallic micro- and nanostructures. The project aims to understand and potentially engineer plasmonic crystals with broad frequency bands of extraor...

The University of Bern is offering two fully funded PhD positions in plant community ecology and ecosystem functioning , beginning in March 2027. The project, “Effects of transient plant species on ecosystem functioning and soil microbial communities, using the PaNDiv grassland field experiment,” will investigate how temporary or transient plant species influence the functioning of grassland ecosystems and associated soil microbial communities. The research connects plant community ecology with ...