After five years, our European Senior Advisor for innovation Otto Bruun leaves SwissCore with a suitcase full of wonderful memories.
And so in what seems like the blink of an eye, the time has come to bid farewell to the Brussels bubble. It’s hard to believe that five years have already passed.
In the fall of 2018, I came to Brussels to take on new challenges at SwissCore after having spent most of my adult life in Western Switzerland, as a student and researcher at the University of Geneva and then as an entrepreneur in the regional innovation ecosystem. The arrival in the European capital was a daunting but exciting introduction to a new policy world, a new city, and new colleagues. I had previously worked to promote European programmes, and had been involved in an FP6 project back in the day, but that hardly prepared me for the whirlwind of policy events, working groups, seminars, stakeholder meetings, talks, coffee meetings, briefing notes, delegations, all in addition to a veritable firehose spraying policy and programme news and analysis that the primitive little neural network in my head tried to filter, process and organise.
The talent, smarts, and energy of my SwissCore colleagues kept me afloat during those first months, and they were kind to give me a supportive push whenever I had a proposal for a useful initiative. They also gave me the confidence to navigate the uncertain waters of a research and innovation landscape that was in so much flux, as Horizon Europe was taking shape, and as important innovation initiatives were still in a protean form. What brought me to the office each morning with a smile on my face and a skip in my step was also the wonderful broader community of stakeholders working on science and technology issues in Brussels and back in Switzerland. First and foremost our Swiss partners at Euresearch, Innosuisse, SNSF, swissuniversities, the ETH Board and SERI, and in Brussels our passionate counterparts at other national liaison offices in IGLO, the other national innovation agencies, and in the European institutions.
Among all the successes (and setbacks) of supporting Swiss engagement with the EU programmes, two experiences stand out: the development of the ambitious European Innovation Council (EIC) and the building up of the UAS4EUROPE alliance. It was particularly exciting coordinating the Swiss input to the design of the programme, while working with the Swiss startup and investor communities and collaborating with the Euresearch company advisors. Together we helped make Swiss startups leaders in the nascent “Champions League” of European innovators (hélas, a run of success that is now interrupted by the hold-up in Swiss association to Horizon Europe). It was also enriching to work with the European community of Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) through UAS4EUROPE, and supporting the Swiss UAS therein. We succeeded in ensuring that their full potential was understood and tapped at European level, and in making them key players in the development of initiatives to help Europe address the many global challenges we face. It’s a point of pride to see how UAS4EUROPE has grown to be a recognised voice on the European stage, and to witness the enthusiasm of UAS actors, to the point where we are struggling to find venues large enough to accommodate our networking events. Thanks to all my UAS4EUROPE colleagues for the great team-work!
Above all my thanks go to 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, for entrusting me with the task of supporting and facilitating the Swiss participation in EU innovation policy and programmes. I now pass on the baton to my successor and look to my own next steps, to new challenges in what has by now become slightly more familiar surroundings back in Switzerland. I will miss the Brussels bustle, but I’m looking forward to breathing the Alpine air again, and joining SERI as scientific advisor for international innovation programmes. My new position will give me the opportunity to keep working with the Swiss and European research and innovation policy communities that I have come to know and appreciate warmly. The beer may be lighter, the sun a bit brighter, but in Bern the passion for serving the Swiss research and innovation community will remain the same.