INNOVATION AN FACHHOCHSCHULEN

The new performance mandate in applied research and development is conditional, among other things, on the availability of mid-level faculty and the provision of sufficient funding for research and research personnel. It is not only within their own sphere that the universities of applied science have to identify interdependent positions and enter into new alliances. While needing to set themselves apart, they now also have to cooperate with other universities and the Federal Institutes of Technology, which have long been fulfilling a research mandate.

Since commencing grant-making activities at the start of 2008, Gebert Rüf Stiftung has supported a broad range of exemplary innovative projects at universities of applied science. Under the program title «Innovation an Fachhochschulen» the foundation supported the transformation process of reorganization and repositioning underway at Switzerland's universities of applied science. Grant-making activities focused less on further education projects and more on the core task of providing students with initial training in an environment geared to research with real-life applications.

Within this area of activity managed under the program title «Innovation an Fachhochschulen», projects of junior scientists at universities of applied science in collaboration with other university institutions were especially welcome. This vertical integration with other types of institute of higher learning (other universities and the Federal Institutes of Technology) promoted the development of skills at the respective universities of applied science on a sustainable basis. Generally just as welcome were model pilot projects for the promotion of mid-level faculty at universities of applied science entailing, for example, the deployment of doctoral students in collaboration with a university or a Federal Institute of Technology.