European programmes - Time is pressing for the universities

Swiss universities have been hard hit by the breakdown of negotiations for a framework agreement between Switzerland and the EU, and thus the classification as a third country in the European research and education programmes. At the moment, there are no signals from the European Commission for a quick association. This drastically reduces the chances of association in this period. The Swiss authorities are trying to cushion the negative effects with various measures. These are indispensable, but are never a complete substitute for Switzerland's full participation in the programmes. For the universities, the situation with regard to research programmes is currently as follows: Projects can no longer be realised as planned, Swiss researchers are losing project leaders, and projects and researchers are relocating to EU countries. As a result, the budgets of the universities will be short of millions.