Overview of support offers and content of the impact monitoring

The current status of the impact monitoring is structured in such a way that at least for the financially most significant support offer in each category of funding offers, statements can be made on the effectiveness and selected comparisons. The current gaps (in light colour) will be closed step by step (see chapter Further development of impact monitoring).

Innosuisse support offers

Source: Cockpit/PowerBI Innosuisse (2025)
* The results of the impact monitoring for the highlighted instruments are presented subsequently. The ‘Swiss Accelerator’ funding programme (2023-2024) is not listed (funding volume 2023: CHF 111.8 million). It was a temporary replacement measure in response to the non-association with Horizon Europe.

The majority of Innosuisse funding goes to and . The greatest importance is attached here to standard innovation projects between companies¹ and researchers, in which the research institutions are primarily compensated for the remuneration of research staff. The participating companies and organisations, for their part, contribute at least 50% of the total project costs.

In addition, companies are supported in initiating innovation projects by means of ,, ,, the , and other events. Start-ups can benefit from , and offers. The results of the impact monitoring of the Innovation Boosters and Start-up Core Coaching are presented here.

Results can also be presented for .

The inclusion of international innovation projects in the impact monitoring is planned for the 2025 reporting year. The projects in which start-ups and SMEs are directly supported (Start-up innovation projects and Swiss Accelerator) will be integrated into the monitoring at a later date, as none of the projects have yet been completed. This applies equally to the Flagship Initiative projects.

¹ In the following, ‘company’ is often used as a synonym for ‘implementation partner’. This is not entirely precise because the implementation partners can include companies as well as administrations, non-profit organisations and other private or public institutions. However, the vast majority of implementation partners are companies (SMEs, large companies and start-ups), which is why we are taking the liberty of simplifying here in order to make the texts easier to understand.

Thematic areas of the innovation projects 2021–2023

The approved innovation projects can be categorised into five different thematic areas, which are also shown in the chart below, broken down by support offers. The chart shows the percentage share of the thematic areas in the approved innovation projects as an average for the years 2021–2023. The percentage shares by instrument differ, sometimes significantly.

• Engineering has a higher and comparable share in (37%), (32%) and in (31%).
• Life Sciences, on the other hand, accounts for a very high proportion of (66%) and an above-average proportion of (38%). It is the most important subject area in (34%).
• Information and communication technologies ICT is the most important area for (30%).
• The differences for ‘Energy & environment’ are smaller, ranging between 9% for and 17% for .
• ‘Social sciences & business management’ is most strongly represented in (21%); otherwise, the proportions are comparatively smaller.