NCCR Bio-Inspired Materials Undergraduate Internships

UPDATE: applications are now closed! 🛑 More than 100 students have applied for a place this summer, so it will take a little while to make the final selection. For those who applied, thank you in advance for your patience!

🦋 This Summer, Transform Your Future 🦋

What if you spent your summer not in a typical lab job, but working on your own groundbreaking research project?

That's the reality for students selected for the NCCR Bio-Inspired Materials Undergraduate Research Internship program in Switzerland.

Here's the dream scenario:

You arrive in for an 8 to 10-week fully funded research adventure. Your housing? Covered. Your travel? Covered. Your focus? Pure science.

Your project could be:

🔬 Modeling Butterfly Wings – Discovering how nature creates stunning iridescent colors using nanotechnology, without a trace of pigment.

🔬 Inventing Super-Adhesives – Unlocking the secrets of collagen to create adhesives inspired by the strength and toughness of nature's own connective tissues.

🔬 Detecting Disease – Developing biosensors to detect proteins linked to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease at the molecular level.

But here's what makes it really special:

✨ You're not just an intern—you're working on a real research project
✨ You'll work alongside world-class mentors
✨ Your research could lead to co-authorship on a peer-reviewed paper before you graduate
✨ You'll earn 6 ECTS credits AND academic recognition
✨ Plus: scientific seminars, international networking, and a summer of discovery in Switzerland

Who's eligible? Ambitious undergraduate science students ready to push boundaries and think big.

When? Applications are OPEN NOW through January 20, 2026.

The catch? This is competitive—so if you're serious about your future in science, don't wait.

👉 Ready to turn nature's superpowers into innovation? Learn more and apply:
www.bioinspired-materials.ch/en/education/summerschool

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Université de Fribourg - Universität Freiburg The Adolphe Merkle Institute University of Fribourg - Biology

As summer winds down, we hosted the very last poster session for our NCCR Bio-Inspired Materials undergraduate research interns at The Adolphe Merkle Institute. Since 2015, 184 interns from around the world have taken part in this program, and this year’s cohort delivered outstanding research.

🎉 Congratulations to Isobel McSweeney (Trinity College Dublin) for winning the Best Poster Prize with her project on “Colloidal depletion for size-selective sorting”!

We’re proud of every student’s hard work and can’t wait to see where their discoveries lead next!

Université de Fribourg - Universität Freiburg EPFL

Our summer interns were out and about this week, travelling to picturesque for a hike and a dip in the (chilly) lake as part of the traditional group excursion, meeting some of the locals along the way!