dent Vetterli can speak from his own experience: “I would not have been able to advance my research in digital signal processing as far as I did without an ERC grant of almost two million euros over five years.” Yves Flückiger, President of swissuniversities, also points out that Swiss researchers are completely excluded from several key areas of research, including the flagship programme for quantum research, which is of strategic importance for driving forward digitalisation; the construction of the international nuclear fusion reactor ITER, where Switzerland has been involved in project management since 2007; and the Digital Europe programme, which focuses on high-performance computing, artificial intelligence and cyber security. The brain drain has already begun According to Vetterli, Switzerland used to be among the most active of the associated countries involved in EU research, especially in the fields of health, environmental studies, climate, and quantum technology. Now, however, it has been sidelined for over a year, despite the financial gartner notes that candidates for professorships at the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology are now all enquiring about Switzerland’s prospects for reassociation in the near future. Switzerland’s prosperity is at stake Working in isolation is unthinkable in the field of research, not to mention the sphere of innovation. As a reaction to Switzerland’s non-association, the renowned Geneva-based company ID Quantique (more information in the box on page 5) has opened a branch office in Vienna to maintain access to Horizon Europe. Flückiger states that the 100 jobs which would otherwise have been created in Switzerland are now in Vienna. In Switzerland’s case, Horizon Europe not only affects its research and the researchers who are worried about their top positions. It efforts of the federal government, which has stepped in with interim funding of 1.2 billion Swiss francs. Vetterli reports on start-ups that originated on the EPFL campus and are now opening offices in Europe to ensure they continue to attract talent and can benefit from European funding, while Flückiger has heard of the first group of researchers who have already left Switzerland for France, Austria and Belgium along with their ERC grants. And HenResearch in Switzerland is more internationally linked than in almost any other country, with two-thirds of the researchers who work in Switzerland having completed their doctorates abroad. Switzerland-EU relationship crisis drags on Roughly a year after negotiations for a framework agreement broke down, Switzerland is making a new attempt to regulate its future relations with the EU. However, the road to finding a viable solution between Berne and Brussels is still long – and marked by mistrust on both sides. Furthermore, there is no broad-based consensus within sight on the home front. A scientific “Champions League”: Horizon Europe is the world’s largest research programme with a budget of 100 billion euros for 2021–2027. Swiss Review / October 2022 / No.5 6 Focus
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYwNzMx