After exactly three years, Rahel Byland leaves SwissCore with a crying and a laughing eye.
Almost exactly three years ago to the day, I joined SwissCore in Brussels after ten years of connecting Swiss research and innovation to Asia at ETH Zurich. It was a deep dive into dark waters indeed. Before moving to Belgium with my family and a large truckload of household goods, I had only spent one single night in the European Capital and two days at conferences dealing with the only FP7 project I had ever worked in (it was an ERA-Net project connecting Europe with Japan notably). So, little did I know about Brussels life and not much more about European framework programmes for research and innovation neither, I have to admit.
I learned fast however. Thanks to Martin Müller and Florence Balthasar leaving not long after my arrival, I was sent to five Informal Group of Liaison Offices (IGLO) working groups, jumped right into the organisation of one of SwissCore’s famous R&I Seminars and was given the task of writing a factsheet about European partnerships and their transition from Horizon 2020 to Horizon Europe. A topic that was at the time cryptic not only to me I believe. At least my ERA-Net experience came in handy here. With the help of the SwissCore team, the IGLO family and also SwissCore’s funders and partners in Switzerland, I learned to decipher the EU slang, navigate my way through the complexity of framework programmes and EU research policy, and grew to loving Brussels and Belgium. All while making a lot of new good friends and colleagues on the way as well.
I would thus like to take the opportunity to thank the SwissCore team and SwissCore’s funders, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) and Innosuisse, who hired me, for giving me this great opportunity to become an expert in a new field and contribute actively to the facilitation of a Swiss participation in EU policy and programmes. My thanks also go to all Swiss partners and stakeholders, who supported me with a lot of patience, discussions and nice interactions in Brussels, Switzerland and recently also mostly online. It was a pleasure working with you all, contributing to your seminars and trainings and setting up great events together.
I will be leaving SwissCore with a crying and a laughing eye. Crying, because I will miss the always kind and sociable SwissCore team and our nice offices, which I unfortunately did not have the chance to use much, given the second half of my SwissCore time was mostly spent working from a tiny desk in my home. Laughing, because I am looking forward to my new challenge as a Science and Technology Counsellor at the Swiss Mission to the EU. My new position will give me the opportunity to keep working with many of my colleagues and to keep serving the Swiss education, research and innovation community. I am also looking forward to spending more time in Belgium and Brussels enjoying the culture and countryside in hopefully soon post-pandemic times.