A report analysing Switzerland’s Participation in the 6th EU Framework Programme and fact-sheets on the Swiss participation in different research priorities of FP6 has been published by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education and Research SER.

In international comparison, Switzerland shows itself to be both very open in its choice of countries with which it has project partnerships, very well integrated at the heart of the collaborative network established by the great Western countries and an all-rounder in the research topics tackled. FP6 has therefore generated more than 32 000 project partnerships between researchers based in Switzerland and European researchers.

The subsidies received from this, which amounted to CHF 793 million, were mainly used to fund research in the areas of information technology (CHF 225 million, or 28.4% of the subsidies), life sciences and health (CHF 160 million, 20.2%) and nanotechnologies (CHF 92 million, 11.6%). Swiss tertiary-level institutions, i.e. universities, federal institutes of technology and universities of applied sciences (UAS) were the main beneficiaries of these subsidies (CHF 507 million, 63.9%), followed by SMEs, which received CHF 111 million (14.0%) in funding.

The Confederation's contribution to funding FP6 amounted to CHF 780 million, distributed over the course of the four-year duration of the programme. Switzerland therefore made a positive net financial return.

The average annual contribution made by Switzerland to FP6 (CHF 195 million) puts it in second place, behind the National Science Foundation, in terms of money spent by the Confederation on the direct funding of R&D. In return, the annual average amount of subsidies awarded to Switzerland-based researchers, as part of FP6, represents approximately 1.5% of the total gross domestic expenditure on R&D.

The report is available online in German and French. An English version is in preparation.