ScienceGeist

The disruptions caused by COVID-19 have led to an acceleration in the digitization of all major aspects of life - and has brought to light who the laggards are, and who leads the charge.

This study examines the composition of academics’ networks at different points in their career and discuss the role of transnational ties within them.

The COVID-19 pandemic is severely pressuring a long-building rise in worldwide innovation, likely hindering some innovative activities while catalyzing ingenuity elsewhere, notably in the health sector, according to the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2020.

In the media circus surrounding the pandemic, it's the loudest researchers who have been heard the most. Why it is important that we also listen to quieter voices in future, and why the state of scientific knowledge should be communicated with greater candour.

ETH has been highly successful in the awarding of this year’s ERC Starting Grants for young researchers, with the European Research Council (ERC) approving a total of CHF 21.4 million in funding for 12 ETH project submissions.

The ETH Board, swissuniversities, the Swiss National Science Foundation, Innosuisse – the Swiss Innovation Agency, and the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences reject the Limitation Initiative. They organised a joint press call in order to state their views on the Limitation Initiative and affirm the importance of research cooperation with Europe.

Switzerland will soon vote on whether to cancel the agreement on the free movement of persons, thus terminating the well-established Bilateral Agreements with the EU. Only by networking fully with its European neighbors and the world in general, can the high standards the Swiss hold for themselves be maintained.

Women at ETH Zurich - from the early days to the present

The SNSF has adopted the DORA recommendations in its career funding schemes and adapted some other criteria. This will make the selection process even fairer and more inclusive of re-searchers with diverse career paths.

In late February and early March 2020, Switzerland experienced rapid growth of severe COVID-19 infections. This pre-print follows and analyses non-pharmaceutical interventions during this period.

Covid-19 could be a boon for the robotics industry, leaving companies to decide when and where humans are better than machines.

A report on the status of women faculty at EPFL outlines common challenges faced by women professors, and more importantly, recommendations on how to move forward.

Encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration, streamlining regulations, and giving people the freedom to research: These are some of the goals Michael Schaepman hopes to achieve as new President of the University of Zurich.

The European Commission released the European Innovation Scoreboard 2020. According to the ranking, Switzerland continues to be the most innovative country of the continent.

swissuniversities has adopted a new transformative Open Access agreement with Springer Nature. This agreement provides Swiss researchers with access to SpringerLink with over 2’000 Hybrid journals and enables authors affiliated with the Swiss academic and research institutions to publish their accepted research papers Open Access, making this primary research immediately and freely accessible from the point of publication.

The SNSF and the Dutch Research Council have agreed to finance joint projects. This will make it much easier for Swiss researchers to collaborate with their Dutch counterparts.

The president of Switzerland's top-ranked university says his institution is tentatively getting back to speed after the coronavirus lockdown - but that this is harder than anticipated.

Despite the special calls for research into the novel coronavirus, researchers should all still concentrate on what they do best, writes Matthias Egger, President of the National Research Council of the SNSF.

The Opendata.ch 2020 Forum will explore New Data Narratives, diving in deep collaborative work, and aiming high!

Swissuniversities has adopted a new transformative pilot agreement with Elsevier for research access and Open Access publishing in Switzerland.

The Policy Briefs of the Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force are now available on its website. They reflect the Task Force thinking on a topic at that time and will be updated in the light of new studies or other data. 

Gestern Donnerstag haben 25 Forschende aus der Schweiz den Bundesrat aufgefordert zur Linderung der Corona-Epidemie "einschneidende ...

This report shows the results of a survey conducted in spring 2019 among all people who received a PhD in political science from a Swiss university during the last eleven years (2008 to 2018) and among postdocs working in a Swiss university in June 2019. Thus, this survey sheds light on the experiences and career paths of both postdocs and doctors in political science who left academia. Moreover, it compares the results regarding postdocs with a similar study carried out in 2012.

The Swiss National Science Foundation is testing a new CV format for researchers applying for project funding in biology and medicine (submission deadline 01 April 2020).

Swiss scientists fear a number of political obstacles could block their path into the EU's next big research programme.

A hugely successful research system is being tested by a dispute over immigration and a deteriorating relationship with the EU.

The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) announced on Wednesday that it is allocating several million Swiss francs to research on coronaviruses.

The Swiss Federal Council has renewed Martin Vetterli's term as president of Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), upon the recommendation of the ETH Board. The professor of communication systems will therefore lead EPFL for a second four-year term that will begin on 1 January 2021.