It has almost all of its Research Universities and its two Federal Institutes of Technology in the Times World University top 200 ranking.
Switzerland has been also recognised as the most innovative country in Europe. 99.7% of Swiss companies are small and medium enterprises, a number of which have strong research and patent activities. To keep both the scientific excellence and the innovation dynamic, the Federal Government designed supporting programs and allocated funds to foster new projects.
And as Switzerland is well aware of the challenges of our global world, it acknowledges the need to build networks to keep a leading position.
Building networks in particular with Russian scientists is one of the current priorities of the Federal research policy.
For this purpose, a special Science and Technology Cooperation Program was set up and launched in 2008. It is oriented towards cooperative research projects and is open to business partners.
University of Geneva has been designated as the Swiss Leading House to fulfil this endeavour. Approximately 7 million Swiss Francs have been allocated to the Science and Technology Cooperation Program between Switzerland and Russia for the years 2008-2011 and will be used for several types of common projects.
First of all, a series of Joint Research Projects have been submitted in the recent call for proposals. Funding will be made available to hire PhD students and post doc researchers.
Selected projects will receive funding for up to 2.5 years of activity, until June 2012, and the projects having a business partner will be given priority.
Submitted projects are currently being evaluated by the National Science Foundation – the independent scientific evaluation institution that ensures the quality and independence of the evaluation process.
Second, a series of grants for exchange projects will be made available twice a year. The next call is planned for June 2009 and will propose three types of grants – for Faculty exchange, for Student exchange and for Special Infrastructure Use projects.
Grants will cover living allowances in Switzerland for Russian scientists, consumables for the common project and travel costs for Swiss scientists invited to Russia.
To participate to the call, two researchers from Switzerland and Russia have to formulate a common research project. The researcher on the Swiss side has to be working in one of the Swiss public higher education or research institution and will be responsible for submitting the project.
The researcher on the Russian side has to be working in a recognised Russian university or research institution.
The participation of private companies in common projects is highly encouraged.
This participation can take the form of an involvement in the research project with the perspective to have access to the results, which may be of high interest to innovative small enterprises.
Your SME can for example provide samples to be tested or ask for a market analysis in a very specific field and it will be done by highly qualified researchers in Switzerland and Russia.
The calls are indeed open to all disciplines, from engineering to economics and finance.
