Switzerland commits CHF 45m for science partnership with India

Switzerland has set aside an additional 45 million Swiss francs to back joint scientific and technological research with India, Swiss President Guy Parmelin announced during a state visit to New Delhi.

Speaking at a bilateral meeting with India's Minister of State for Science and Technology, Dr Jitendra Singh, Parmelin described India as a rapidly rising power in global research and development. The Swiss president said Bern is looking for a matching financial commitment from the Indian government to expand the joint research framework between the two countries.

The discussions, detailed in a statement from India's Ministry of Science and Technology, focused on turning two decades of bilateral scientific work into a more structured, long-term system. India and Switzerland first signed an inter-governmental science and technology pact in 2003, which later produced the Indo-Swiss Joint Research Programme.

Pacts signed to formalise research links

During the meeting, officials advanced two key institutional agreements to put the funding to work. The Department of Science and Technology (DST) signed a letter of intent with the Swiss National Science Foundation, alongside an implementation agreement between DST and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences.

Singh pointed to the progress made on establishing both the Indo-Swiss Research Framework and a joint scientific board, which are meant to manage sustained institutional projects and make it easier for researchers to move between Indian and Swiss laboratories.

The minister told the Swiss delegation that India has shifted towards mission-mode scientific programmes that pull in multiple ministries and academic fields at once. Singh singled out work in quantum technology, biotechnology, genome sequencing, space missions, and ocean research, arguing that artificial intelligence must be treated as an enabling tool across these sectors rather than kept in a silo.

Swiss invitation to Geneva AI talks

Parmelin raised the international governance of artificial intelligence, stressing that benefits from the technology must reach developing countries in the Global South. As part of that effort, the Swiss president formally invited India to take part in the upcoming Geneva AI Summit.

The talks brought together senior science administrators from both administrations. The Swiss delegation included State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation Martina Hirayama, Swiss Ambassador Maya Tissafi, ETH Zurich President Joël François Mesot, and Swiss National Science Foundation President Torsten Schwede.

Singh was joined by science and technology secretary Umesh Waghmare and biotechnology secretary Rajesh Sudhir Gokhale, along with nodal officials managing the ministry's Swiss cooperation desk.

Whether New Delhi will formally match the CHF 45 million pledge in full remains to be seen, as the ministry's release noted the Swiss expectation but did not confirm a specific Indian spending figure. The two governments plan to focus initial joint calls on areas including clean technology, advanced materials, biomedical research, and quantum computing.