Info for Companies
The photonic industry plays an important role in Switzerland with a direct revenue of close to 6 billion SFr.
Switzerland ranks highest in Europe in photonic revenue per capita as well per employee and is a recognized economic photonics cluster (see Photonics Switzerland brochure, page 10).
Switzerland has no industrial policy and the companies have to find themselves market niches where they can excel. Thus Switzerland favors bottom-up initiatives.
The organisation Swissmem is supporting companies through their Swissmem Industry Sector Photonics (SISP) group.
Switzerland ranks highest in Europe in photonic revenue per capita as well per employee and is a recognized economic photonics cluster (see Photonics Switzerland brochure, page 10).
Switzerland has no industrial policy and the companies have to find themselves market niches where they can excel. Thus Switzerland favors bottom-up initiatives.
The organisation Swissmem is supporting companies through their Swissmem Industry Sector Photonics (SISP) group.
Support of innovation at companies
The Swiss Federal government spends up to 5 Bio CHF/year in education and innovation. An interesting overview from 2015 on the distribution of funding can be found here
Swiss Federal Innovation Funding (PDF, 161 KB) (Innosuisse is labeled as CTI). It is evident that most programs are dedicated to research. But there are at least two innovation funding sources of interest for companies. - Bottom up programs: Innosuisse (200Mio CHF/year): Project requests need to include at least one company and one research institute. Innosuisse is funding the research institute up to the amount of the R&D investment of the company (matching funds). Cash support by the company is desired but not always a requirement. Projects on any topic can be submitted anytime and offer a large range of support with the following key characteristics.
- High acceptance ratio
- Goal of Innosuisse projects is to generate workplaces (at all levels) in Switzerland
- Clear description of market opportunity, state-of-the art and plan to cover gap is required.
- Top down programs: Via EU (Horizon Europe, ESA, etc 800Mio/year): The Swiss federal government finances R&D at Swiss companies and research institutions based on top down programs as decided by Brussels. As the total direct cash going into R&D funding of Swiss companies is estimated to be above 100Mio CHF/year this funding source has become very important.
- euresearch is guiding and supporting you through the process.
International projects are listed in the Cordis database.
Topical interest groups
Services for one topic are provided in Switzerland by several research institutions. Thus it can be difficult for an SME to contact the appropriate research institution. In order to improve the service for SMEs we have listed contacts to topical interest groups.Swissphotonics supports member companies:
Swissphotonics can support you and your company! We offer to our members free of charge:- Workshops: Workshops to bring research and industry together
- Matching partner: Support to find a matching research institute
- Public innovation funding: Support to find governmental funding
- Market data: Access to international photonics networks and to market data and reports
- Financing of companies: Swissphotonics establishes contact with equity and dept-equity sources
- Patents: Swissphotonics can give first level support for intellectual property questions
