After three and a half months (1 September to 14 December 2021) at SwissCore, we bid farewell to Selina, our trainee for innovation.
I am sad to be leaving SwissCore and Brussels and it is with mixed feelings – it was a pleasure to work with the SwissCore team as well as with its partners and stakeholders and there is still a lot to learn for me when it comes to European innovation, education and research policies. At the same time, I am looking forward to my new position as Swiss Public Affairs Coordinator at the World Economic Forum in Cologny. From one French-speaking city to the next!
During my time at SwissCore, I supported Otto Bruun, European Advisor for Innovation, in covering European innovation programmes, keeping Swiss stakeholders informed on innovation policies and interviewing Swiss start-ups, academics and other innovation actors for the SwissCore success stories. In my capacity as trainee, I also supported the swissuniversities Chairwomanship at UAS4EUROPE, especially in developing UAS4EUROPE’s activities regarding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It was interesting to assist an expert group consisting of innovation actors from Universities of Applied Sciences across Europe in creating the UAS4EUROPE Innovation Action Plan for Europe. One of the highlights of my traineeship was definitely to help organise the Launch of the UAS4EUROPE Action Plan at the Permanent Representation of the Netherlands, where UAS4EUROPE handed over this position paper to EU Commissioner Mariya Gabriel. As former international relations student, I was delighted to learn about European innovation policies and programmes as well as Swiss-EU relations from within the heart of Europe in Brussels.
I would like to thank the SwissCore team for giving me this great opportunity to learn so many things in such a short time. A special thank you goes out to Otto Bruun, who has been an amazing supervisor, for challenging me professionally and for giving me the tools for the future. I will miss the team and our conversations greatly and I hope that our paths will cross again in the future, either in Brussels, in Geneva or somewhere else in Europe.