State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation, SERI
State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation, SERI

Location: Bern - Bern region
Discipline: Research Management, Innovation
Related:
- ARAMIS
- ETH Board
- Euresearch
- Innosuisse, Swiss agency for the promotion of innovation
- Marcel Benoist Foundation
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
- Swiss Science Council SSC
- SwissCore
- swissnex
The State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) is the federal government’s specialised agency for national and international matters concerning education, research and innovation policy. The SERI is responsible for the ETH domain (ETHZ, EPFL, Eawag, EMPA, PSI, WSL). The SERI is also partly responsible on the federal level for the cantonal universities, universities of applied sciences and various research centers. The SERI is part of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research.
On 9 December, the Federal Council elected Aude Pugin, CEO of APCO Technologies, and Sergio Ermotti, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Swiss Re Group, to the Board of Directors of Innosuisse. The new members will take up their duties on 1 January 2023. They will replace Nicola Thibaudeau and Thierry Calame, who will step down at the end of 2022. The Federal Council would like to thank the two departing members for their service to Innosuisse.
On 9 December 2022, Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin, Head of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER), received a visit from the Australian Minister for Trade and Tourism, Don Farrell. Discussions focused on bilateral economic relations. Australia is an important economic partner for Switzerland.
The State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation, Martina Hirayama, participated in the European Space Agency ESA Council Meeting at Ministerial Level held on 22 and 23 November 2022 in Paris. At this gathering of the 22 ESA member states- ministers responsible for space affairs, the Council reached decisions about ESA-s new programmes and about mandatory funding for the years 2023 to 2025. Switzerland has committed to participate to all ESA programmes with a contribution of over 600 million CHF for this period.
On October 19, 2022, the United States and Switzerland signed a Joint Statement on Cooperation in Quantum Information Science and Technology (QIST) at the Embassy of Switzerland in Washington, DC. The statement builds upon the nations- shared democratic values and the strong bottom-up collaborations that exist between QIST researchers from the two countries.
From 3 to 4 October, Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin will travel to Mumbai and Delhi to meet key national and Swiss economic players in India, and hold talks with his Indian counterpart, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal. Discussions will focus on bilateral economic relations and negotiations on the EFTA-India Free Trade Agreement. A large economic and scientific delegation will accompany him on the visit, which will provide an opportunity to deepen bilateral economic relations and reaffirm Switzerland's commitment to economic and scientific cooperation with India.
On 23 and 24 November, Science Europe, the association of research funding organisations, together with the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation and the Swiss National Science Foundation hosted this year's High-Level Workshop in Zurich. Participants included ministers, high-level delegates and heads of national research organisations from across Europe. The theme of the workshop was -Research ethics and scientific integrity in the context of public engagement-. Switzerland's contribution underlined its active commitment to a strong European Research Area.
ESA's new class of astronauts was presented on 23 November in Paris. Switzerland's Marco Alain Sieber is one of them.
At the second GESDA Summit in Geneva, President of the Swiss Confederation Ignazio Cassis addressed a gathering of ministers, scientists and diplomats. He shared his vision of anticipatory science diplomacy. Two initiatives in the fields of quantum computing and science diplomacy were proposed during the summit. Mr Cassis, also head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), took part in a ministerial panel that brought international political actors to a GESDA Summit for the first time.
Physics professor Ursula Keller receives the Swiss Science Prize Marcel Benoist for her ground-breaking work in short-time laser physics. The Swiss Science Prize Latsis goes to the legal and medical scholar Kerstin Noëlle Vokinger for her outstanding interdisciplinary research.
