The Foundation's premier annual award is the Hans Sigrist Prize, awarded to an academic researcher who is a groundbreaker in the prize field.  A call for proposals goes out each year to all faculties of the University of Bern, and after considering the proposals, the board chooses the field for the prize and the chair of the prize search committee for the coming year.  The prize search committee then conducts a thorough international search for the prize winner.  The goal of the Hans Sigrist Foundation is to select prize winners who are at a mid-career point, so that the funds from the prize will be used to boost their research and take it to an even higher level.  Two of our former prize winners have gone on to win the Nobel Prize.  More information about the Hans Sigrist Prize is available here.

To highlight the prize field, the Foundation also provides funding for the annual Hans Sigrist Symposium, which brings in expert speakers to present their research.

To increase the international outreach of the University of Bern, the foundation also provides Supplementary Grants (Zuschüsse) for professors 1) whose primary employment is with a foreign university, 2) who are visiting the University of Bern, and 3), who have primary funding from another source, but who could benefit from a small amount of supplementary funding due to the high cost of living in Bern.  Please note that the application itself must come from a host professor at the University of Bern and not from the prospective recipient of the funds.  More information about Hans Sigrist Supplementary Grants is available here.