The Swiss Federal Government Provides 84 Million for Swiss Researchers
Published: Wednesday, Oct 25th 2023, 11:20
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The Swiss Federal Government has allocated a maximum of 84 million Swiss francs for individual projects of Swiss researchers as a transitional measure for 2024. This money is intended to maintain the innovation power of Switzerland despite differences with the EU. Due to the current non-association with the Horizon package, researchers in Switzerland are not allowed to participate in the corresponding European tenders. Therefore, Swiss researchers will be offered an adequate national alternative, as announced by the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (WBF) on Wednesday. The funds for this purpose were approved by the Parliament at the end of 2020 for Switzerland's participation in the Horizon package. The State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SBFI) will commission the Swiss National Fund (SNF) with the tenders. The Federal Council continues to pursue the goal of an "earliest possible" association of Switzerland with the Horizon package. However, the tenders for the European scholarships (ERC Starting Grants, ERC Consolidator Grants) for 2024 will close in October or December 2023. Therefore, they will not be accessible to researchers in Switzerland even in the event of an association in 2024. Horizon Europe, the ninth EU framework programme for research and innovation, runs from 2021 to 2027 and has a budget of almost 95 billion euros, making it the world's largest research and innovation funding programme. Switzerland was associated with the predecessor programme Horizon 2020. The Federal Council has already provided transitional measures amounting to 1.85 billion Swiss francs for the tenders in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
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