Academic CV in Switzerland: PhD & Researcher Guide 2026

Applying for a doctoral position, a postdoc or a faculty role in Switzerland is not the same as applying for a job in industry, and the CV you send should reflect that. An academic CV is longer, evidence-driven and built around your scholarly record: publications, teaching, grants and conferences. This guide explains how the academic CV differs from a standard Swiss industry CV, how to structure it for ETH, EPFL, the cantonal universities and research institutes, and how to decide which version to send.

Academic CV vs industry CV: the core difference

A Swiss industry CV is a tight, two-page marketing document. It leads with a short profile, foregrounds measurable achievements and is ruthlessly cut to fit. The academic CV works on the opposite logic: it is a complete, factual record of your scholarly output, and length is acceptable because completeness is the point. A search committee at a university wants to see the full list of what you have published, taught, presented and secured in funding — not a curated highlight reel.

The practical consequences are clear. An academic CV can run to four, six or more pages for an experienced researcher; nobody expects you to squeeze a decade of papers onto two. The tone is sober and precise rather than promotional. And the structure is built around the categories that academic committees score: research, publications, teaching, funding and service.

When to use an academic CV (and when not to)

Use the academic version when you apply for PhD positions, postdoctoral fellowships, lecturer or assistant-professor roles, research-group memberships, or grants from bodies such as the Swiss National Science Foundation. The reader is a professor or a committee who will judge you on your contribution to the field.

Switch to a concise industry CV the moment your target is a company — including the many research-and-development roles at Swiss pharma, biotech, engineering and tech employers. There, a hiring manager has minutes, not afternoons, and wants impact and fit, not a complete bibliography. Many doctorate-holders keep both versions ready and choose per application. If you are moving from academia into industry, do not simply trim the academic CV: rewrite it around results, skills and business value.

How to structure your academic CV

There is no single mandatory order, but Swiss search committees expect to find these sections, roughly in this sequence:

• ●Personal details — name, contact information and, following Swiss convention, usually a professional photo and date of birth (DD.MM.YYYY). Add nationality and work-permit status if you are not an EU/EFTA citizen.
• ●Research interests — three or four lines naming your fields, methods and questions, so a reader places you immediately.
• ●Education — doctorate first, then master's and bachelor's: degree, institution, location, dates, and your thesis title with supervisor.
• ●Academic positions — postdocs, assistantships and research roles in reverse chronological order.
• ●Publications — see the next section.
• ●Teaching experience — courses, levels, institutions and your role (lecturer, teaching assistant, thesis supervision).
• ●Grants, fellowships and awards — with funder, amount where appropriate (for example CHF 250'000) and year.
• ●Conferences and talks — invited talks, presentations and posters.
• ●Service, skills and languages — peer review, committee work, technical methods and language levels (CEFR).

The publication list: the heart of the academic CV

For researchers, the publication list is what the committee reads most closely, so present it with care. Group it by type — peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings, preprints and work under review — and order each group from newest to oldest. Use one consistent citation style (the one normal in your discipline) and include DOIs where available. Put your own name in bold so your contribution is visible at a glance, and where your field cares about authorship order, make first or corresponding authorship explicit.

If your list is long, you may highlight a handful of selected publications at the top and append the complete list further down. Early-career researchers with few papers should still include preprints, the master's or doctoral thesis and accepted-but-not-yet-published work, clearly labelled. Never pad the list with predatory-journal entries: Swiss committees know the field and notice.

Teaching, grants and conferences: showing the full scholar

A Swiss academic position is rarely research-only, so the committee weighs how you teach and whether you can attract funding. Make the teaching section concrete: name the courses, the level (bachelor, master, doctoral), the language of instruction and your exact responsibility, and mention any teaching certificate or student-supervision record.

Funding signals independence. List grants and fellowships with the awarding body, the year and, where it is standard, the amount; even small travel or seed grants count early on. Under conferences, separate invited talks from contributed presentations and posters, because an invitation carries more weight. Together these sections show you as a complete academic — someone who advances knowledge, passes it on and brings in the resources to keep doing so.

Build your academic CV today

An academic CV for Switzerland rewards structure and completeness: a clear personal-details block, a focused research-interests statement, a rigorously formatted publication list, and full sections for teaching, funding and conferences — with a separate, concise version ready for any industry application. You do not have to format all of that by hand. Create your academic CV with CVSwiss and let the builder organise your publications, teaching and grants into a layout that ETH, EPFL and Swiss universities expect — in the language of your choice. If you also need an industry version, you can adapt the same profile in minutes.