At the end of February, Elischa Link and Janik Mutter will finish their traineeships at SwissCore.
Incredibly fast, six months at SwissCore have come to an end, so it is time to say goodbye to our trainees Janik and Elischa. During the last weeks and months, they experienced the Brussels bubble up close. By supporting our team, they did not only deepen their knowledge about the function and structure of the European Union, but they also worked together with our most valued partners in the Research, Education and Innovation Community, such as IGLO (Informal Group of RTD Liaison Offices) or UAS4EUROPE. Both got to dive head into the research funding and innovation landscape. By attending conferences, meetings and events on the most diverse topics, they gained insights into the EU research and innovation programmes and policies, but also the European landscape it is anchored in.
With a background in higher education politics, Elischa arrived at SwissCore already with knowledge about one of the three fields SwissCore covers and could immediately contribute to the daily work. However, as a trainee for Innovation, he primarily worked in another field. He covered the European Innovation Council (EIC), focusing on its accelerator, the New European Innovation Agenda (NEIA), and further developments under the EU research & innovation programme Horizon Europe. Furthermore, he supported the management committee of UAS4EUROPE, the umbrella organisation of European universities of applied science (UAS), in which SwissCore represents swissuniversities. Concretely, he conducted interviews with UAS representatives from all over Europe about how they contribute to the NEIA leading to the UAS’ers guide to building innovation ecosystems, published in November at an event in Brussels. Besides these focus points, he supported our team in the daily work, wrote various Synopsis articles and infomails, as well as two success stories (see SwissCore articles on InCephalo and REVEAL), and informed our Swiss partners about the latest developments in the field of innovation.
At the time of his entry, Janik had recently graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) with a Master’s degree in Microbiology and Immunology. In his position as trainee for research, Janik focused mainly on the European partnerships under the EU research & innovation programme Horizon Europe and therefore continued the work of Justine Schmid. He collected information on upcoming partnerships under the Work Plan 2023-2024 and the next Strategic Plan of Horizon Europe 2025-2027 and distributed them to SwissCore’s partners. Janik worked in more depth on informing and connecting relevant Swiss stakeholders for the upcoming Partnership in Brain Health. Furthermore, he tracked the legislative process of the European Chips Act, analysed its implications on the Key Digital Technologies Joint Undertaking, which will be transformed into the Chips Joint Undertaking and prepared a factsheet about it for Swiss stakeholders. Besides, he followed ongoing developments and events in Brussels, wrote Synopsis articles including a success story about the high-performance computer LUMI, Infomails and supported the planning of an upcoming Science Briefing on Open Science and the benefits of Common Research Infrastructures using Covid-19 as an example.
We would like to thank Elischa and Janik for the work, motivation and inspiration they invested into their traineeships. The support both of them gave us during the day-to-day work, events and their dedicated trainee projects was an important pillar of SwissCore’s activities for the last six months. We wish them all the best and much success on their forthcoming professional journeys.
SwissCore offers 6-month-long traineeships twice a year. This February, Jule and Chantal joined our team, and in September 2023, there will be a new cohort of SwissCore trainees.