Master’s project in a university abroad or in Switzerland

Broaden your horizon and strengthen your academic skills by doing a Master’s project in another university in Switzerland or abroad.

The Master project can take place in one of EPFL’s partner university or non-partner universities. You must have found a professor at EPFL and at the university of your choice who will supervise your project. No minimum grades are required to be able to do a Master project in a university in Switzerland or abroad.

This does not apply for students in Architecture who are not authorized to do their project outside of EPFL.

Please take note of EPFL’s specific requirements for Master’s projects.

You are responsible to organize the administrative aspects related to your Master’s project in another university in Switzerland or abroad.

The Student Exchange office intervenes in the process only if the Master’s project takes place in a partner university in Europe in order to pay out the funding that students are entitled to.

For all questions related to EPFL’s guidelines for a Master’s project outside EPFL (the duration, the start and end dates, the credits, for a prolongation etc.), please refer to EPFL’s specific requirements or contact the student services desk if needed.

Once you have found a professor at the host university, inquire with this person or with the student exchange office of the home university about the registration procedure and the deadlines. Usually, students who undertake a project are registered as visiting or host students. The procedure is specific to each receiving university.

It is also advised to inquire with the host university if any tuition fees or taxes have to be paid. It is possible that some universities will ask you to pay semester fees, which are at our own costs.

If your host university is one of EPFL’s partner universities and that it asks you to be nominated by EPFL (this is sometimes required by host universities in Japan), please contact the student services desk.

If your home university requires the signature of a convention, please contact your EPFL professor.

Tuition fees

Students who undertake a Master’s project in another university remain registered at EPFL and pay EPFL’s tuition fees even if the host university charges tuition fees or taxes.

Funding
  • As of January 2025, EPFL will not provide any funding anymore to students whose Master’s project takes place at ETH Zurich or in one of the 4 research Institutes of the ETH Board (EAWAG, EMPA, PSI, WSL). If your Master’s project takes place at ETH Zurich and that you are required to have the document “Confirmation of Recognition for Project Mobility Students at ETH” signed, please have it signed by your EPFL section or professor.
Other grants (private foundations)

Please visit this webpage to see other scholarships that are offered. These scholarships are handled by the Student Affairs so please contact them directly if you have any questions. You can find more precisely on this webpage the various scholarship opportunities for studying abroad.

If your Master’s project takes place in one of EPFL’s partner universities in Europe please fill in the application form for a Master’s project in IS-Academia under the tab Exchange application (to not mistaken with the tab Master Project which needs to be filled out in any case).

The form must be signed by your EPFL Professor, by the Program Deputy of your section and by yourself. Once the form is signed by the 3 parties, please upload it back onto IS-Academia and validate the application form. This procedure will help you to verify that the form has been validated correctly.

The Student Exchange Office will then send you instructions regarding the payment of the scholarship or the allowance.

If your Master’s project takes place at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), a limited number of Severin B. Hacker Fellowships of CHF 2’500 per student-project will be granted for the academic years 2024-25 and 2025-26 on a first come – first served basis (subject to change).

In order to apply for this scholarship, please fill in the application form for a Master project in IS-Academia under the tab Exchange application (not to be mistaken with the tab Master Project which needs to be filled out in any case).

The form must be signed by your EPFL Professor, by the Program Deputy of your section and by yourself. Once the form is signed by the 3 parties, please upload it back onto IS-Academia and validate the application form. This procedure will help you to verify that the form has been validated correctly.

The Student Exchange Office will then send you instructions regarding the payment of the scholarship or the allowance.

For general questions related to the organization of your Master’s project in another university in Switzerland or abroad, you can find the answer on our page Frequently Asked Questions.

For questions related to EPFL’s guidelines for a Master’s project outside EPFL (the duration, the start and end dates, the credits, for a prolongation etc.), please refer to EPFL’s specific requirements or contact the student services desk if needed.

Furthermore, you can find on this link the lists of students who are doing their Master’s project in a university outside EPFL (see spreadsheet “Projet de Master”).
In order to access this file, the field “username” needs to be completed as follow: INTRANET\ followed by your EPFL username (Gaspar account). Finally, accessing this ressource requires a stong authentification, you may find on this webpage information on how to set it up if you have not already done so.