- Symposium
- Bern
Wie bleibt die Wissenschaft der Schweiz top?
Image: local_doctor/stock.adobe.com1/7- 2025
- Report
Evaluating the Quality of Global Research Partnerships
2/7Community Roadmaps for large research infrastructures
3/7- News
“There must be some reward for sharing research data”
Image: David Jezdimirovic4/7- News
Forschung zwischen Sicherheit und Freiheit
Image: SCNAT5/7- 2023
- Report
Lighthouse Programmes in Sustainability Research and Innovation
6/7- News
«Lehren aus Covidkrise jetzt ziehen»
Image: Manu Friederich7/7
For a solid science
SCNAT is committed to an efficient Swiss scientific system that serves society. It strengthens the exchange among the key players in science, raises awareness of the ethical responsibility of science and draws up guidelines for scientific work and its use.
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Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT)
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Prix Schläfli 2025 award for the four best dissertations in natural sciences
Simona Meiler (Geosciences), Ewa Merz (Biology), Martin Sarott (Physics) and Hyun Suk Wang (Chemistry) were honoured with the Prix Schläfli 2025 for findings made in the context of their dissertations. Through this prize, the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) singles out the four most significant insights of young researchers at Swiss universities. The Prix Schläfli has been awarded since 1866.
Image: SCNAT
How the microstructure of snow in the Arctic influences sea ice and the global climate
Amy R. Macfarlane will be awarded the Prix de Quervain 2024 for her excellent and innovative doctoral dissertation at the ETH Zurich and the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF. Her research serves as a base to reduce major uncertainties on sea ice modelling and to improve the quality of global climate models predictions. For this, she applied a wide variety of instruments to measure the microstructure of snow in high resolution directly in the Arctic for the first time.
Image: Calle Schöning
“There must be some reward for sharing research data”
Publicly accessible research data (Open Research Data, or ORD) should make academic findings more transparent and easier to reproduce. Also, further use can be made of the data to study new questions or to train AI. Experts discussed where Switzerland stands in terms of ORD at an SCNAT symposium.
Image: David JezdimirovicSwiss science diplomacy – strategies, instruments and implications for international cooperation
Science diplomacy, a tool for advancing foreign policy objectives, research and addressing global challenges, takes various forms: informing international policies with scientific evidence, facilitating global science cooperation and leveraging scientific collaboration to improve international relations. Switzerland has placed a strong emphasis on science diplomacy in recent years, formally adopting the concept at the federal level and establishing new instruments to support it. This policy brief provides an overview of Switzerland's science diplomacy ecosystem, highlighting opportunities and gaps. Recommendations focus on further strengthening Swiss science diplomacy through alignment of terminology and strategies at the federal level, fostering communication between Swiss science diplomacy actors and developing a Swissnex Africa strategy.
Lighthouse Programmes in Sustainability Research and Innovation
This report argues that one of the most effective ways to support sustainable development through research and innovation is to establish large, integrated funding programmes, referred to here as lighthouse programmes. As well as producing impact-oriented knowledge on key sustainability challenges, these programmes would bring many other societal, scientific, and institutional benefits. These include: building closer relationships between science, society, and policy, and encouraging changes in the academic system itself, for example by increasing its capacity for inter- and transdisciplinary research.
Swiss Young Academy
The Swiss Young Academy offers early-career researchers the opportunity to carry out inter- and transdisciplinary projects. With their commitment and contributions, its members strive to identify societal challenges at an early stage, offer solutions to these challenges and promote dialogue between science and society. The Swiss Young Academy was launched by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences, to which the SCNAT belongs.