Gabriele Gendotti, a lawyer from the canton of Ticino, is the new president of the Foundation Council of the SNSF. The former national councillor and member of the cantonal government replaces Hans Ulrich Stöckling at the helm of Switzerland's most prominent research funding organisation.
In mid-December 2011, the Executive Committee of the Foundation Council unanimously re-elected the members of the Presiding Board of the National Research Council. Additionally, they chose new presidents in three divisions and elected five new members to the National Research Council due to the expiry of various mandates as of 1 April 2012.
The new edition of the 6-page "SNSFinfo print" with the latest institutional information of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) has been published. The October edition is devoted to the topic "Enlargement contribution: co-operation with researchers from Bulgaria and Romania".
The 2008-2011 term of office of the National Research Council will expire at the end of the year. The Executive Committee of the Foundation Council of the SNSF has therefore unanimously re-elected all the current members of the National Research Council for the 2012-2015 term of office. The re-election will be effective up to the expiry of the maximum term of office of eight years (exceptionally this may be extended). Furthermore, the Executive Committee of the Foundation Council has elected ten new members of the National Research Council.
Dieter Imboden will be stepping down as President of the National Research Council at the end of 2012. The SNSF is therefore looking for a suitable replacement as of 1 January 2013.
The representatives of the scientific organisations of the Foundation Council elected Crispino Bergamaschi (Rector's Conference of the Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences/KFH) to succeed Richard Bührer (KFH) as well as Lucas Bretschger (ETHZ) to succeed Rico Maggi (University of Lugano) to the Executive Committee of the Foundation Council. The Federal Council elected two further members of the Foundation Council: Wolfgang A. Renner as a business representative and Walter Steinlin, president of CTI. They replace Andreas Steiner and René Imhof, who stepped down from their positions. The new members assumed office on 1 April 2011. The Executive Committee of the SNSF Foundation Council elected eight new members to the National Research Council.
The new edition of the 6-page "SNSFinfo print" with the latest institutional information of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) has been published. The June edition is devoted to the categorisation of scientific research, especially to “use-inspired basic research”.
In 2010, researchers submitted substantially more projects to the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) than in previous years. A steep increase of 17% compared to 2009 means that competition for research funding has become very intense. With overall funding of 726 million Swiss francs, the SNSF supported more projects than ever before (+2.7 % compared to the previous year).
The twelfth edition of the 6-page "SNSFinfo print" with the latest institutional information of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) has been published. The March edition is devoted to the SNSF’s language policy and other topics and is also published in English for the first time.
The Executive Committee of the Foundation Council of the SNSF has elected Frank Scheffold, professor at the physics department of the university of Fribourg, as successor to Peter Schurtenberger (University of Fribourg) in Div. IV of the National Research Council in the area of physics. The new member of the Research Council will take up office on 1 May 2011. In December 2010, the Executive Committee also elected Isabelle Mansuy, professor at the Brain Research Institute of the University of Zurich, to succeed Isabel Roditi (University of Berne) as member of the Research Council in Div. IV in the area of biology. She took up office on 1 January 2011.
In 2009 the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) approved around 2,900 research proposals with funding totalling 707 million Swiss francs. Last year researchers submitted significantly more applications to the SNSF than in previous years, noticeably sharpening competition for research funding.
In its constant endeavour to supply information targeted to needs, the SNSF now offers a news-service. Researchers and others can build their own personal information menu made up of SNSF scientific and foundation news topics, and then subscribe to it.