Swiss Innovation agency Innosuisse is launching two new funding initiatives this month namely the impulse programme “Swiss Innovation Power” and the Flagship Initiative.

In November 2020, the Federal Council decided to launch the impulse programme “Swiss Innovation Power” through Innosuisse starting in 2021. The aim of the programme is to stimulate innovation activities during the current pandemic and ensure the long-term competitiveness of SMEs and other commercial organisations with a maximum of 500 full-time employees. The online Innosuisse application platform has been open to applications since 7 January 2021.

With the Flagship Initiative, Innosuisse aims to promote projects that enable innovation in thematic areas that are of great relevance to the Swiss economy and society and will receive proposals until 31 March 2021.

Innosuisse will launch the first call for proposals on 14 January 2021 with the following thematic focus areas:

1. Coping with the digital transformation triggered and accelerated by COVID-19, focusing on four areas which are education, learning and teaching, tourism and travel, real estate and urban planning, healthcare and medical technology;
2. Improving the resilience and sustainability and reducing the vulnerability of society, infrastructure and processes, with a focus on four areas which are demographic change, supply chains, resilience of ICT infrastructures, decarbonisation.

André Kudelski, President of Innosuisse, firmly believes that these two initiatives will strengthen the long-term competitiveness of the Swiss economy, in particular by ensuring the innovative capacity of SMEs. In his view, the crisis linked to the COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated the need for structural changes and in particular the digitalisation of the economy.

In light of this, the need to think about and develop new business models also represents an opportunity for Swiss companies.

“With the impulse programme, Innosuisse aims to strengthen the innovative and creative capacity of SMEs to enable them to take advantage of and respond to emerging opportunities. Through the Flagship Initiative and its open and transdisciplinary approach, we want to offer companies the opportunity to develop projects that are of particular interest to the country and require innovative solutions or even new business models,”

added Kudelski.