The Swiss research and innovation community spend three intense days in exchanges and discussions with the EU institutions and Brussels-based R&I stakeholders.
The enthusiasm is back for Swiss researchers and innovators working in European projects: Since the beginning of the year 2025, Swiss entities are eligible again to fully participate in Horizon Europe, Digital Europe and Euratom. In this positive new atmosphere, we welcomed 100 colleagues from Swiss universities, research institutes, national research and innovation funders, from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) in Brussels for our annual SwissCore Research and Innovation Seminar.
Over the course of three days, we covered topics ranging from FP10, research security, CoARA, AI in science, start-up and scale-up support and international collaboration. Among the esteemed guest speakers, we had the privilege to discuss with the Deputy Director-General of DG RTD, Signe Ratso, as well as MEP Eszter Lakos (EPP/Hungary), Magdalena Kula from the Polish Presidency of the EU, Manuel Aleixo from Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva’s cabinet, Prof. Conny Aerts from the High-Level Expert Group (Heitor Group) and more than 20 other colleagues from DG RTD, DG CNECT, EU Member States, other associated countries, and stakeholder organisations.
What stood out was the overall atmosphere of excitement to be working more closely with our European partners again. After years of political challenges, the successful (material) conclusion of the negotiations between Switzerland and the EU on a set of new agreements enables moving forward with R&I collaboration; and a full association to Horizon Europe is expected for later this year still (see SwissCore article). It was therefore very timely to introduce the Swiss colleagues to the new priorities on the EU’s side (competitiveness, economic and research security, simplification), new aspects of Horizon Europe (such as the Societal Readiness Pilot), and the preparations for the next framework programme for research and innovation (FP10).
As part of the networking activities, the Swiss Mission to the EU held a reception for the Swiss delegation hosted by Minister Alexander Renggli, the Deputy Head of Mission, and we enjoyed a dinner and drinks in the Châtelain neighbourhood of Brussels.