The European Union and Switzerland have signed a new agreement granting Switzerland full participation in several flagship EU programmes focused on research, innovation and digital technologies. The agreement, signed in Bern by EU Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva and Swiss Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin, applies retroactively from 1 January 2025, the European Commission announced.
The partnership gives Switzerland full access to Horizon Europe, the EU’s main research and innovation programme, as well as to Digital Europe, designed to boost the deployment of strategic digital technologies, and to Euratom, which supports training and research in the nuclear field.
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Swiss researchers and organisations will now have the same rights as EU participants: they can coordinate consortia, receive direct EU funding and access all thematic pillars and instruments. The collaboration aims to accelerate progress in climate solutions, digital transformation, health innovation and energy security.
The agreement also opens the door to broader cooperation. From 2026, Switzerland will join Fusion for Energy, enabling contributions to the international ITER project – the world’s largest scientific partnership dedicated to demonstrating the viability of nuclear fusion. The country is expected to join Erasmus+ in 2027, while participation in EU4Health will be possible once a separate health agreement enters into force.
The new framework is part of a wider package negotiated between March and December 2024, intended to modernise and strengthen EU–Swiss relations.
Switzerland remains one of the world’s top innovation leaders, consistently ranking first in the Global Innovation Index, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which measures performance across indicators such as human capital, infrastructure, market sophistication and technological output.
Photo: Bruegel
