The Foundation Council welcomes two new members
The Foundation Council has elected two additional members to broaden and strengthen its SNSF supervisory competencies. With Jörg Gasser and Lothar Thiele, the Council now consists of nine members.
Following the SNSF reorganisation project, the new Foundation Council began its work in early 2024. Personalities from science, the economy, politics and administration are part of the Council and are pooling their knowledge. Jörg Gasser and Lothar Thiele are new members.
Jörg Gasser is currently an independent entrepreneur as well as an experienced board of directors and foundation board member. After obtaining a degree in economics and international relations, he worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for more than ten years. He then held executive positions in the Federal Administration and in the private sector. Among other things, he was State Secretary for International Financial Matters and CEO of the Swiss Bankers Association.
Lothar Thiele taught and researched at ETH Zurich between 1994 to 2022 as a Professor of Information Technology. He has received numerous international awards for his research and life's work. He was a member of the Research Council and President of the Steering Committee of BRIDGE, the joint funding programme of the SNSF and Innosuisse. From 2017 to mid-2024, he is the Delegate for Digital Transformation at ETH Zurich.
Evolution of the Research Council
As a further part of the SNSF’s reorganisation project, the Foundation Council welcomed the willingness of 56 of the 62 eligible members of the current Research Council to be part of the new Council. It will be set up in March 2025 and will be equipped with new strategic competencies and will adapt its organisation accordingly.
The Foundation Council also defined and adopted the profile of the future Academic Board. The mandates will be announced in the next few weeks and the new members of the Academic Board will be elected in October 2024. From 2025, they will lead the activities of the Research Council.
The Delegates Assembly elects its bureau
The new body created by the project, the Delegates Assembly, also elected the members of its bureau at the end of April. Elisabeth Stark, Vice President for Research, Promotion of Young Researchers and Innovation at the University of Zurich, will be President of the Assembly. The Vice President is Christine Pirinoli, Vice Rector Research and Innovation at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HES-SO) and also Vice President of the Research Delegation at swissuniversities. The other members of the bureau are Christian Wolfrum, Vice President for Research at ETH Zurich, and Christian Bochet, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Fribourg.
As an advisory body, the Delegates Assembly brings together SNSF stakeholders, particularly the Swiss universities. It will actively contribute to shaping its evolution by integrating the diverse opinions of the Swiss scientific community into discussions.