The State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) has published a position paper in response to the Horizon Europe consultation, which closed on 23 February.
The response includes input from SERI, the Swiss National Science Foundation, Innosuisse, Swiss universities, the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences, the Euresearch Network, the ETH Board, the Swiss Science Council, SwissCore, Swissmem and Science industries, and conveys the following key messages:
- International cooperation with like-minded countries is key to accessing talent and promoting high-quality research and innovation
- Scientific excellence and impact should remain central to Horizon Europe
- Scientific breakthrough should be promoted further through Pillar 1 and the encouragement of sustainable small team structures through Pillar 2
- Efforts to better integrate Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities within Horizon Europe should be pursued
- European innovation policy should continue to foster breakthrough innovation in all fields
- Global networks and value chains to secure international leadership should be further embraced
- The promotion of Open Research Data is an important step that should be taken further to generate a shift towards Open Science
- It is crucial to monitor the compliance with Open Science policies
- Research Assessment has the potential to positively disrupt academic culture
- The submission and reporting processes could be further simplified and standardised
- Duplication of efforts and funding should be reduced
- The integration of gender and sex aspects into research and innovation content as well as of broader diversity aspects in research teams should be strengthened
Under key message 6, related to the UK’s contributions to the R&I landscape, the paper states: ”The Global Innovation Index 2022 published the top 10 list of the most innovative economies, which contains five EU member states, the USA, Switzerland, the UK, the Republic of Korea and Singapore. Switzerland recommends including these countries in strategic alliances, extended partnerships and technology value chains in deep-tech fields to guarantee success and global leadership through Horizon Europe.”
Further information and detail can be found in the paper itself which has been shared on the SERI website here.