The European Research Area

Switzerland: integrated into
european research

The advancement of scientific research and technological development has been among the goals of the European Union since it was founded. Until now, the EU has concentrated on encouraging cooperation between researchers in different countries through its research framework programmes. In March 2000 in Lisbon, the European Council, which consists of the heads of state or government of the EU, formulated a more ambitious concept - the creation of a European Research Area (ERA). This ERA is intended to have the same importance for European research and innovation as the single market for Europe's economy. It is a political goal to be reached through a wide range of measures:

• Networking of national and joint research programmes and organisations
• Integration and development of existing initiatives (e.g. COST)
• Mapping of leading research centres in Europe (Mapping of Excellence)
• Improved environment for private research investments and partnerships
• Coordinated quality and impact assessment of national policies in the areas of research and development
• Creation of a trans-European high performance data network for scientific communication (GRID)
• Removal of barriers blocking the mobility of researchers in Europe; measures against the brain drain of highly qualified researchers
• European "Community patent"

One ERA-related initiative already launched is the European Trend Chart on Innovation. This website provides comparative data about innovation capability and promotion in Europe. This data also includes the annually updated Innovation Scoreboard, which compares the innovation indicators in various European countries. Switzerland is also included as an "associate country".

The most important financial instrument for the implementation of the ERA are the European Union Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development (RTD).

Switzerland and the European Research Area

The European Research Area is one of the European Union's strategic goals and will expressly involve those countries which are not members of the EU. Switzerland, which is traditionally strong in the field of research, shares the ambitious goals of the ERA and has a clear interest in taking part in the activities of the ERA, which are still at the planning stage or which are already under way.

Besides ensuring that Swiss researchers can participate in the Framework Programmes, the State Secretariat for Education and Research also coordinates Switzerland's cooperation in the various initiatives of the ERA at the research policy level. For example, Switzerland is involved in committee work and projects to identify leading research centres and in the coordination of quality and impact assessment at the European level.