Science Alliance warns against Federal Council’s cost-cutting plans
Keystone-SDA
An alliance of research and science institutions have warned of dire consequences if the Swiss government goes ahead with its proposed austerity package. It warns the savings package would lead to fewer trained specialists and less investment in research and innovation.
+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
“Austerity measures in education, research and innovation are increasing the shortage of skilled workers and damaging the Swiss economy,” wrote several players in the education sector in a joint statement on Tuesday.
The position paper comes from Swissuniversities, the Swiss federal technology institute ETH Zurich board, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences and the Swiss Innovation Agency (Innosuisse).
+ Switzerland outlines budget savings plan
The reason for the concerted action is the budget savings package presented by the Swiss government at the end of January, which envisages cuts in funding for education, research and innovation amounting to more than CHF460 million ($504 million) per year. The government emphasises that these are not cost-cutting measures, but rather a curbed increase in expenditure.
What is your opinion? Join the debate:
Adapted from German by DeepL/jdp
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
