The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) was founded on 1 August 1952 by a group of Swiss scientific umbrella organisations. Its key tasks then, as now, were to provide financial support for clearly defined research projects in all scientific disciplines and to provide funding for young scientific talent. Over the years, the remit of the SNSF has extended to include additional tasks and the range of funding programmes and measures has become wider and more varied.
Background
May 1945: The war was over. Swiss scientists and industrialists re-established contact with their foreign colleagues, only to discover, to their dismay, that scientific and technological research, especially in those major countries previously at war, had progressed far beyond the level of Swiss expertise. The sense of alarm was widespread and it seemed that only by making a major effort could Switzerland avoid the decline into mediocrity. The SNSF was established to address these concerns.
The architects of the SNSF
Institutionally, the “Schweizerische Naturforschende Gesellschaft” (Swiss Society for Naturalists), today’s Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences (scnat), played a leading role. In co-operation with other Swiss scientific umbrella organisations, the aims of the SNSF were defined and articles were drawn up for its statutes .
With great personal dedication, the true founding father of the SNSF, Alexander von Muralt, professor of physiology at Bern, convinced the Swiss Federal Council to provide the SNSF with the necessary funding he needed to fulfil his aims. The submission to the Federal Council and the Swiss Parliament, drafted under guidance of von Muralt, could not have been more stark in describing the alarming state of Swiss research at the beginning of the 1950s: "The funding provided to-date in Switzerland is now inadequate and too fragmented to support outstanding individual achievements alongside the development of independent young researchers and a supportive wider community of successful scientists as is increasingly the norm in other countries."
On 26 October 1951, the Federal Council submitted its report to the Swiss Parliament on the provision of federal funding for the "Swiss National Science Foundation”.
Creation
The SNSF was founded on 1 August 1952 at a ceremony held in the ‘Council of States’ chamber of the Federal Parliament. Federal Councillors Etter and Feldmann were present at the ceremony, underlining the importance which the Federal authorities attached to the SNSF.
The First 50 Years
During its first 50 years of funding support, the National Research Council of the SNSF has examined almost 40,000 applications and awarded CHF 5.6 billion to research projects across all academic disciplines. Over the same period, 15,000 promising young academics have received grants.
Since the introduction of the National Research Programme (NRP) in 1976, more than 4,000 applications have been received and over CHF 500 million awarded in funding. A similar amount has to-date been awarded under the auspices of the Swiss Priority Programmes (SPP), which were established in 1991. To finance the National Centres of Competence in Research (NCCR), set up in 2001, a sum of CHF 475 million was awarded by the SNSF over an 8-year period. At the beginning of its activities in 1953, the SNSF had an annual budget of CHF 4 million, 25 years later the annual budget had risen to CHF 126 million and 50 years after its creation this figure amounted to CHF 400 million.
To mark the 50th anniversary of the SNSF in 2002, a team of historians from the University of Geneva led by Prof. Antoine Fleury researched the establishment of the Swiss National Science Foundation and published a chronology up to the present-day.
The path to the future
In accordance with its multi-year programme 2012-2016, the SNSF aims to enhance the attractiveness of scientific careers in Switzerland and to improve the balance between researchers' professional and family lives. This is intended to increase the number of female researchers, which continues to be too low. The SNSF also wishes to strengthen the competitiveness of Swiss researchers and secure Switzerland's opportunities for formative action in cross-border research activities.