Tips for obtaining good search results

Use a more specific search term
If you want to narrow down your search further, you can use a more specific search term. Example: Use the search term "youth culture" instead of "culture".
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Select additional filters
Try to narrow down your search results by selecting additional, suitable filters. For example, if you want to limit your search to funding foundations that support projects in the canton of Zurich, you can select the filter "Zurich" as the area of activity.
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Combine your search term with filters
A good research method is to combine a search term with filters. This is particularly useful if there is no separate filter for your search. Example: You are looking for funding foundations that support young jazz music in the canton of Zurich. You could then combine the search term "Jazz" with the filters "Target group: Young people", "Subject area: Contemporary music" and "Area of activity: Zurich".

Use search operators
Right in the search field, you can sharpen your search with operators – for example, exclude terms (-term), search for an exact phrase ("...") or combine two terms ("term1 + term2"). Example: Jugendkultur -Sport hides results containing "Sport". We explain all operators in the article "Using search operators".
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We generally recommend this type of search for complex, specific searches, as it combines the advantages of filters and text searches. Just make sure that the search term and filter complement each other and are not mutually exclusive.

Check the spelling
Has a spelling mistake crept into your search term? The Spheriq search often corrects spelling errors automatically, but in some cases it is still worth checking. Correcting the spelling of your search term can help you get more results.
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Use an alternative search term
Are there synonyms you can use instead of your search term? A quick brainstorm can be worthwhile. Alternatively, you can try the automatically generated "related search terms" of the Spheriq search. These are displayed below the search results or on the "No results" page.
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Use a less specific search term
Expand your search by using a less specific search term or a search term with a broader subject. Example: Use the search term "jazz" instead of "bepop", which is a genre of jazz music.
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Remove selected filters
Reduce the complexity of your search by removing selected filters step by step and checking whether the results are of better quality.

Use search operators to broaden your search
Operators also help you search more broadly. With the word-stem operator, you find related terms: Entwicklungs*, for example, returns Entwicklungshilfe and Entwicklungszusammenarbeit. And several terms separated by a space (Bildung Digitalisierung) return results containing at least one of the terms.