Faculty of Science involved in several FUNIGE Grands Projets
Established in March 2025 with the support of the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, the Fondation pour l’Université de Genève (FUNIGE) aims to complement UNIGE’s public funding to support research projects that exceed ordinary budgetary resources. It now operates through five instruments: Grands Projets, for ambitious programmes that can receive up to one million Swiss francs per year over five years; Soutien, for more targeted initiatives; Équipement, which co-finances state-of-the-art infrastructure; DÉMARRAGE, which supports the installation of newly appointed professors and the launch of competitive research projects; and REESC — Rayonnement et Excellence: Éducation et Service à la Cité — which supports structuring initiatives in teaching, knowledge dissemination, science outreach, and cultural or scientific events.
Following its first call for projects, which closed in mid-December 2025, several initiatives led or co-led by the Faculty of Science were selected in the Grands Projets category. Four of them are presented here: FUNDIS, SOL — Structure of Life, Swiss-ET, and CATARACTS. From artificial intelligence to structural biology, from gravitational waves to digital humanities, these projects illustrate the diversity of research conducted at UNIGE and the Faculty’s ability to lead large-scale interdisciplinary programmes.
FUNDIS — AI Foundation Models for Scientific Discovery
The FUNDIS project, AI Foundation Models for Scientific Discovery, aims to develop a new generation of artificial intelligence tools capable of accelerating scientific discoveries in fields where data are abundant, but annotations are rare and costly to produce.
Coordinated by Professor Slava Voloshynovskiy at the Department of Computer Science, FUNDIS brings together researchers from the Faculty of Science, the Geneva School of Economics and Management (GSEM), the Faculty of Humanities, and the Global Studies Institute. The project combines expertise in artificial intelligence, astrophysics, particle physics, mathematics, statistics, climatology, digital humanities, and international governance.
Its objective is to design so-called AI foundation models, capable of learning from large quantities of heterogeneous data — images, time series, and texts — and adapting to complex scientific problems. These tools will be applied to concrete projects such as the analysis of observations from the James Webb Space Telescope and the SKA radio interferometer, the search for new particles at CERN, climate forecasting, and the study of the evolution of images and ideas across the centuries.
Beyond its scientific impact, FUNDIS will help to sustainably structure an interfaculty artificial intelligence platform for research, strengthening the University of Geneva’s position as a leading European actor in the field of AI for science.
— Prof. Slava Voloshynovskiy, Faculty of Science, Department of Computer Science
SOL — Structure of Life
SOL is a large-scale scientific programme designed to address one of the most fundamental questions in modern biology: how the organisation of molecules inside cells gives rise to life, to its evolution, and dysfunctions associated with disease. Building on the research excellence of seven laboratories from the Faculty of Science and three from the Faculty of Medicine, it aligns fundamental research with medically relevant questions, thereby creating a bridge between discovery science and long-term societal impact.
Rooted in the network of the Dubochet Center for Imaging (DCI), this project will help consolidate the position of the University of Geneva and the region as a centre of excellence in structural biology. Through the use of cryogenic electron microscopy, Geneva will focus on questions at the cellular scale, complementing tissue-scale investigations carried out in Lausanne and studies of neuronal architecture conducted in Bern.
The total cost of this initiative amounts to CHF 4,422,426, of which CHF 2,170,000 comes from FUNIGE. These funds will enable UNIGE to acquire critical equipment and maintain essential infrastructure and human resources. The support provided to SOL — Structure of Life ensures that Geneva continues to play its part in shaping the future of structural biology — an expensive but essential technology — in Western Switzerland.*
— Prof. Robbie Loewith, Faculty of Science, Section of Biology
SWISS-ET funded by the Fondation pour l’Université de Genève
A new five-year programme will support Switzerland’s scientific, technological and organisational preparation for the Einstein Telescope, Europe’s next-generation gravitational-wave observatory.
The Einstein Telescope will open a new era in gravitational-wave astronomy, observing compact-object mergers and other cosmic sources across much of the history of the Universe. Its scientific programme will shape the field for decades, with major implications for astrophysics, cosmology, fundamental physics and multi-messenger astronomy. Preparing Switzerland’s participation in this major European research infrastructure is therefore a strategic opportunity for the University of Geneva and for the Swiss gravitational-wave community.
The Fondation pour l’Université de Genève has awarded CHF 3.03 million to SWISS-ET: Preparing Switzerland for the Einstein Telescope Era, a five-year Grand Projet led by Prof. Anastasios Fragkos, Prof. Michele Maggiore and Prof. Steven Schramm, the three coordinators of the University of Geneva’s Gravitational-Wave Science Center. With co-funding from the Faculty of Science, the Section of Physics, the participating departments, and national and industrial partners, the project has an expected total volume of nearly CHF 6.5 million.
SWISS-ET brings together the Departments of Astronomy, Theoretical Physics, and Nuclear and Particle Physics, with partners including the Paul Scherrer Institute, the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology, the University of Zurich, and Swiss industrial partners. It pursues three objectives: structuring the Swiss Einstein Telescope community, developing targeted contributions in computing, vacuum, laser and optical systems, and control/readout electronics, and strengthening the scientific exploitation of future observations through modelling, cosmology and data analysis.
The award comes at a decisive moment, as formal Swiss participation in the Einstein Telescope is being considered within the Swiss Roadmap for Research Infrastructures 2027. SWISS-ET will help consolidate this national effort, with the University of Geneva acting as Host Institute.
— Prof. Steven Schramm, Faculty of Science, Section of Physics, and Prof. Anastasios Fragkos, Faculty of Science, Department of Astronomy
CATARACTS: Navigating Visual Overflows
Presented here because of the Faculty of Science’s structuring involvement, CATARACTS is part of a resolutely interfaculty dynamic. Coordinated from the Faculty of Humanities, the project closely combines expertise in digital humanities and computer science.
Benefiting from more than CHF 2.4 million in FUNIGE Grands Projets funding over five years, the project “CATARACTS: Navigating the Visual Overflows” brings together an interfaculty team around one of the major challenges of our time: the unprecedented abundance of images produced by digital media, generative AI, and online visual ecosystems.
Led by Prof. Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel — Chair of Digital Humanities, Faculty of Humanities — CATARACTS brings together the Faculties of Humanities, Science, Law, Social Sciences, and Medicine. The Faculty of Science plays a central role through the Department of Computer Science (DINFO), with Prof. Svyatoslav Voloshynovskyy and Dr. Taras Holotyak, whose team is leading the development of artificial intelligence tools dedicated to image analysis, traceability, and authentication.
In addition to an innovative collaboration on the question of AI styles and latent spaces, DINFO’s contribution will focus in particular on fine-grained large-scale image retrieval, manipulation detection, digital watermarking, and distinguishing between real images and AI-generated images.
This work fully reflects the cross-disciplinary momentum around digital technologies and data science that is developing at UNIGE.
— Prof. Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel, Faculty of Humanities, and Prof. Roland Bouffanais, Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Science
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