Federal bilateral programmes for cooperation in research and innovation with partners beyond Europe meet objectives

The evaluation of bilateral cooperation programmes in research and innovation commissioned by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation SERI was published on 3 March. According to the report, the programmes, launched in 2008, have brought considerable benefits to Swiss researchers and their institutions. For example, they contribute greatly to the diversification of bilateral research collaborations and have led to a significant rise in the number of joint scientific publications with partners in Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Japan and South Korea. The programmes also facilitate and foster cooperation with national research funding agencies. The report recommends the continuation of the programmes in their decentralised form, at the same time proposing greater harmonisation of the individual funding instruments and more unified communication channels. In the current funding period (2017-2020), 530 grants from a budget of CHF 48.4 million have been awarded, including for research projects and mobility programmes, under the federal bilateral cooperation programmes in research and innovation. In 85% of the cases, the grant is likely to lead to a scientific publication, while 70% of the grants may result in proposals for large-scale international cooperation projects.