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Swiss universities and businesses’ representatives have urged the country’s government to ensure that they will be able to fully participate in the Horizon Europe funding scheme by the end of this year.
Horizon Europe is the European Union’s key funding programme for research and business and innovation with a budget of €95.5 billion.
The programme facilitates collaboration as well as strengthens the impact of innovation and research in developing, supporting, and implementing EU policies while at the same time tackling global challenges.
However, since Switzerland withdrew from a draft treaty binding, its access to the programme was hampered, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
After that event, Switzerland got the status of a non-associated country, and the Swiss researchers were cut funding by the EU Commission.
As a result, representatives of Switzerland’s universities, as well as representatives of businesses, have released a joint resolution, which requires the government to take the necessary actions and make sure that Switzerland will be able to fully participate in the programme.
According to the resolution that has been issued by the head of scienceindustries, Matthias Leuenberger, ETH Board President, Michael Hengartner, and Yves Flückiger of swissuniversities, researchers are facing serious consequences as they can no longer lead European projects or apply for European Research Council (ERC) grants or scholarships.
In addition, the fear of researchers leaving Switzerland for another country where they can apply for EU grants also increased.
“Due to its current status as a non-associated third state, Switzerland must expect that researchers from leading edge and innovative companies leave Switzerland or no longer even come here. This will result by a substantial weakening of research and innovation in Switzerland, based on the attractiveness of our economic position. Our country risks losing its footing internationally,” a part of the resolution reads.
Addressing the current situation, the Swiss Secretariat for Education, Research, and Innovation (SERI) noted through its latest status update, published on January 27, 2022, that they are examining possible transitional measures for further 2022 calls.
“SERI is currently examining possible transitional measures for the 2022 ERC AdG to be initiated if Switzerland’s status in Horizon Europe will not have changed by the end of April 2022. The corresponding measure would be foreseen for the second half of 2022. SERI will provide further information in due time,” SERI added.
Under the current status that Switzerland has, researchers and innovators can participate in the majority of calls of Horizon Europe and other related initiatives. Nonetheless, they can not receive funding from the EU Commission.
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