ETH Zurich has opened three funded doctoral programmes for 2027 in artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics. Each takes a single application and pairs successful candidates with supervisors, so you apply to the programme rather than to one professor's project.
The ETH AI Center Doctoral Fellowship offers about 8 to 12 places. Fellows propose their own project and are supervised jointly by two professors from different fields. Applications close at 16:00 Central European Time on 27 October 2026.
The Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems gives each fellow one advisor at ETH Zurich and one at a Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, Tübingen or Saarbrücken, or at the ELLIS Institute Tübingen, with a compulsory 12-month exchange between the two. The deadline is 23:59 Central European Time on 2 November 2026, and shortlisted applicants are invited to a selection symposium in Tübingen in March 2027.
The RobotX PhD Fellowship lets you apply once and name up to three robotics professors, who then review your application. It suits applicants who have already built something that works on real hardware, and it closes on 15 December 2026.
All three need a master's degree by the time you start, and ETH accepts applications only through its online portal. Our guide to how funded PhDs work in Europe explains how fellowship programmes like these differ from single-project PhD posts. If you still need the master's, the ETH Zurich Excellence Scholarship funds master's study at ETH.
