Working Programme
The Swiss Science Council SSC is the advisory body of the Federal Council for issues related to science, higher education, research and innovation policy. It formulates a working programme for each legislative period, in coordination with the agenda of the political authorities. In addition to setting its own priorities, the Council retains the flexibility to respond to demands from the Federal Council.
The Working Programme 2020-2023
- Facing the Challenges of our Time
Are the necessary framework conditions in place for the ERI system to make a significant contribution to the development of solutions for today's major challenges as well as for smaller-scale problems? What measures are needed? To what extent are these objectives compatible or not with the usual focus of research and innovation policies on national competitiveness and economic growth?(Agenda for Transformative Science, Technology an Innovation Policies, OECD Science) What is the role of international collaboration?
Once research and innovation have produced knowledge or technologies that may be disruptive or capable of providing solutions to society's major challenges, what factors encourage or, on the contrary, prevent them from being effectively used to meet these challenges by public authorities, private companies, the society as a whole or specific groups?
- Governance of Education, Research and Innovation in an (Inter-)National Context
What are the strengths of the Swiss ERI system? What are the positive effects of these strengths and through what mechanisms do these positive effects operate in practice? How can these strengths be maintained, further improved and made more resilient for the future? What concrete virtuous mechanisms can be modelled so that they can be generalised and applied to other similar cases?
What are the factors that limit the further development of the ERI system and how can they be changed? The ERI system should enable excellence in its higher education as well as in basic and applied research sectors and should promote science-based innovation: Where is the system still incomplete and inconsistent?
- Research and Innovation of the Future
What measures can be taken to secure and improve the services of Swiss research libraries and their framework conditions in the context of the digital transformation?
What is the current state and the impact of federal departmental research? How could it be used for the implementation of new and innovative funding approaches?
What funding approaches have been introduced in recent years to address which needs/problems and what is their added value? What is the potential of possible new funding instruments (ARPA-like instrument, Research Impact Bonds, etc.)?
- Mandates of the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation
Questions
The Council will focus on the following issues:
The SSC’s analysis will focus on the following thematical focal points:
Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially the rapid development of (generative) AI, affects all areas of education, research and innovation. A sustainable development of AI in Switzerland for the public good requires not only clear framework conditions but also the availability of appropriate infrastructures. The SSC is paying particular attention to the health sector, where AI could play an important role in health care and clinical research.
Despite years of intensive research and clear scientific evidence on the importance of limiting the global temperature rise, a gap between knowledge and action needs to be acknowledged. Measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change are insufficient. The SSC wants to contribute to improving the framework conditions for the ERI system to be a driver for implementing solutions.
Well-qualified young scientists are central to the successful development of the manifold higher education system and to society facing up to the major challenges. The SSC favours a doctoral education focussing even more on the responsibilities that PhD graduates are expected to assume – in universities, universities of applied sciences, universities of teacher education, as highly qualified employees outside higher education institutions, as entrepreneurs, etc.
Questions
The SSC’s analysis will focus on the following thematical focal points:
The organisation and the instruments of both the research and innovation funding and the training of the next generation of scientists, including the corresponding evaluation procedures, are key elements of the positive (or negative) effects within the research and innovation system. The SSC continues to explore new perspectives and approaches, both in basic research and applied research as well as in relation to specific sectors and type of institutions. In this context, particular attention will be paid to the research carried out by universities of applied sciences (UAS).
The sustainable success of the Swiss research and innovation system is also closely linked to its transfer capability; to transfer knowledge and technology (KTT) on the one hand and well-trained people with a high level of social skills from the higher education institutions to the labour market on the other. The SSC intends to analyse this complex process in more detail.
Questions
The SSC’s analysis will focus on the following thematical focal points:
Digitisation has turned research libraries into huge data centres and repositories whose organisation and interfaces are of crucial importance for researchers. The SSC aims to contribute to the development of a sustainable ecosystem of Swiss research libraries which provides optimal services to the Swiss research community.
The Swiss authorities invest considerably in departmental research. This area is, however, underexposed. The Federal Council has recognised that there is a need for better coordination with other research funding instruments. Against the backdrop of a more mission-oriented paradigm for solving social and technological challenges, the SSC would like to throw a spotlight on the field of departmental research and to support a further increase in its effectiveness.
In accordance with the SSC’s legal mandate, for each term of the SSC, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) commissions various evaluations, assessments and impact analyses. Following the institutional evaluation of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the assessment of research facilities of national importance (Art. 15 RIPA) carried out during the period 2020–2023, the SERI plans to commission the following two evaluation mandates in the period 2024–2027: The evaluation of the funding portfolio of Innosuisse and the further development of the funding instrument for research facilities of national importance (Art. 15 RIPA).