Innosuisse publishes last CTI annual report

From 1996 to 2017 the CTI was the Swiss Confederation’s funding agency for innovation. By providing advice, networking opportunities and funding, it supported economic growth based on scientific research in order to create a strong Swiss economy. The last annual report of CTI shows that the organisation continued its support activities in 2017 on a high level although the preparations for the Innosuisse launch were in full swing.

With respect to funding, the CTI invested CHF 203.2m in 2017. Of these, CHF 151.4m flew into R&D projects, 9.9 in start-ups and entrepreneurship programmes, 4.7 in KTT support. In 2017, In addition to existing offerings, two new programs were introduced: Bridge is a programme run jointly by Innosuisse and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) to accelerate the transformation of research into a business. In 2017, the CTI invested CHF 6.6m in the program.

Below are the details of the activities from 2017.

Start-up and Entrepreneurship: The CHF 9.9 million provided to this support activity was used to run different programs targeted at developing start-ups from ideation to growth. Programs such as CTI Entrepreneurship, Start-up Coaching, start-up Acceleration, Internationalisation of start-ups, Business Angel platforms, and start-up development and networking platforms could be funded. Since 2014, 43’500 people have attended the four CTI Entrepreneurship modules, of these 3972 attended in 2017. More than 30% of the participants in the training module 2 were women. In module 4, the proportion of women was only 12%.

CTI Start-up Label and start-up internationalisation: The CTI label is a recognized seal of quality, achievement, credibility, and readiness for sustainable business growth. Since 1996, the CTI has awarded labels to 418 start-up companies. In 2017, 22 start-ups received the label. Out of these, 14% of the start-up management teams were women, 5% more than in the previous year.  Additionally, the CTI contributes to the internationalisation of technology- and science-based start-ups through provision of market validation camps and market entry camps. Last year the validation programs took place in San Francisco (6), Bangalore (5), London (5). Market entry camps took place in San Francisco (6), New York (1), Shanghai (3), London (2) and São Paulo (2).

Research and Innovation: the largest proportion of funds from the CTI are invested in R&D projects. In 2017 out of 818 submitted applications, almost half of them, 414 projects, were approved. The money flowed into projects in the Engineering Sciences (CHF 50m), Enabling Sciences (CHF 34m), Life Sciences (CHF 36m) and Micro- and Nanotechnologies (CHF 30m). The projects received in total CHF 310.8m – including CHF 131m Federal funding, CHF 17.7m Federal overhead contribution and CHF 161m Industry funding.

In line with R&D, CTI also funds cooperation between SMEs and research institutions through the innovation cheque. This allows SMEs to commission preliminary studies from public research institutions. A cheque is worth a maximum of CHF 7,500. In 2017, 181 cheques were approved and 1.4 million provided.

From CTI to Innosuisse
As of January 2018, Innosuisse took over the support activities from CTI with a new organisational structure. More information about Innosuisse can be found on the website of Innosuisse: 

(RAN)