Innosuisse reaches targets set for 2023

The Federal Council approved the annual report of the Swiss Innovation Agency - Innosuisse on 24 April and concluded that the agency is on track to achieve the objectives set for the 2021-2024 dispatch period. Around 600 start-ups were participating in the Innosuisse Start-up Coaching programme at the end of 2023.

Innosuisse’s funding approvals reached an all-time high of around CHF 490 million in 2023. This is attributable in part to the Swiss Accelerator, a measure that Innosuisse designed and launched on behalf of the federal government as a result of Switzerland being excluded from the EU’s Horizon Europe research programme. Innosuisse uses the Swiss Accelerator programme to support projects run by Swiss SMEs and start-ups that are already established on the market.

Application numbers for start-up coaching also reached a new peak in 2023, with around 600 start-ups in the Start-up Coaching programme at the end of the year. The knowledge and technology transfer fields were also doing very well in terms of both quality and quantity. Innosuisse will serve as president of two major international organisations: it is president of TAFTIE, the European network of leading innovation agencies, in 2024 and will take over the 2025/2026 presidency of the Eureka Network.

The introduction of the Flagship Initiative in the 2021-2024 dispatch period enabled Innosuisse to provide project funding in specific thematic areas. Since 2023 it has also been able to support start-ups directly, before they have been established on the market. Both measures are part of a new paradigm for Innosuisse’s innovation promotion at national level: thematically flexible, organised according to the bottom-up principle and providing indirect support for companies based on their cooperation with research partners.

Innosuisse is the Swiss Innovation Agency. Its role is to promote science-based innovation in the interest of the economy and society in Switzerland. Innosuisse is a federal entity under public law with a separate legal personality. Its organisation and management are independent and it keeps its own accounts.