10 years of the bilateral agreement with France facilitating collaboration for researchers
In 2014, the SNSF and the ANR, its French partner organisation, signed a Lead Agency agreement. Since then, researchers from Switzerland and France have only had to submit a single application for joint projects.
In the Lead Agency process, a single funding agency assesses an application while the other agency adheres to the decision's outcome. Over the last ten years, this process has funded more than 150 projects across a wide range of disciplines, with a total of 73 million Swiss francs.
The tenth anniversary of this agreement was celebrated at an event in Bern, attended by Martina Hirayama, the Swiss State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation, along with various research stakeholders from Switzerland and France. Researchers representing three projects funded under this collaboration also presented their results.
"A Lead Agency agreement is the closest form of bilateral collaboration that offers researchers the greatest freedom. It is a testament to the strong ties and close cooperation we enjoy with our French neighbours and partners,” praised Matthias Egger, President of the Research Council.