Annual Report 2023

8 Annual Report 2023 Euresearch Activity Report of NCPs and Regional Offices The year 2023 was the third and last year of the current contractual funding period between Euresearch and SERI. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the services and activities are discussed below. Any Swiss-based client, regardless of the type of legal entity, can make use of Euresearch services. Nevertheless, clients from academia (universities and ETHs) remained the most-served client type and also manifested the biggest increase (50.3% in 2022 to 58.3% in 2023) (see Fig 1.1). As a consequence, the 3 other client types decreased: universities of applied sciences (UAS), the private sector and all other clients made up 11.3%, 11.7% and 18.7%, respectively. Client segment analyses shown in Fig 1.2 are indicative of a continuous trend since 2021: Services to grantees have steadily increased since 2021, whereas services to prospects (potential applicants) have continuously decreased. In 2023, those clients that are already planning to submit (applicants) made up the biggest client segment (36%). Our service types are grouped into “inform”, “advise”, and “connect”. The overall stable circumstances, together with the national package of Transitional Measures, may explain the shift towards more individually tailored advisory services and away from informational services aimed at groups. The “connect” service remained the least used (3%, see Fig 1.3). Euresearch offers 12 different services. Of these, the 5 most frequently used make up 77% of the overall total, target all 3 client segments and are of an informative as well as an advisory nature (see Fig 1.4). Consistent with the previous year, “project advice” was almost every fourth service offered by Euresearch. A plausible explanation is the continued demand for advice from clients in Switzerland with regard to direct payments by the Swiss Government for positively evaluated projects. Euresearch events for clients are offered in varying formats and have different aims, e.g. informing about funding opportunities in a specific thematic area or providing a general overview on Horizon Europe funding opportunities to a particular client group. Overall, more than 80% of the client events were informing, followed by advising (~14%) and connecting (~2%) events. In 2023, Euresearch reached more than 4 700 clients in 110 different events all over Switzerland (see Fig 2). Two highlights included: In June, Euresearch Regional Office Zurich again organised a “meet and greet” for all the postdoctoral fellows currently working at the University of Zurich, ETHZ, and research institutes and companies in the Greater Zurich region under the schemes that they administer and manage (Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions and SNSF Postdoctoral Fellowships). Fellows were invited to present their projects, and to meet and get to know each other and the Euresearch team. This yearly event is highly appreciated as it gives participants the possibility to network and to talk about their fellowship and about living and working in Zurich.

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