"Early this year, the European Research Commission designated its two “Flagship projects:” Graphene, based at Chalmers University in Sweden, and the Human Brain Project, directed by EPFL. Two of the four other finalists for this funding, for which teams from 26 European countries competed, were also coordinated in Switzerland: Guardian Angels (co-direction between EPFL and ETH Zurich) and FuturICT (ETH Zurich).
It might seem surprising that a country as small as Switzerland was able to hold its own against so many other teams in the final reckoning. One of the most important reasons for this is the remarkable autonomy of our academic institutions. Teaching and research are not organized centrally in Switzerland, as they are in many other European countries. Cantons fund the country’s universities, and the Federal government provides a large envelope – on the order of 2 billion Swiss francs (€1.6 billion) per year – to its two Polytechniques and affiliated research institutes. These institutions then have the independent responsibility to decide how to manage their budgets.
To read the original article: Academic autonomy is what makes Swiss excel in research | EurActiv
