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Swiss Polar Institute

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The Swiss Polar Institute (SPI) was created with a bottom-up approach in April 2016 as a consortium of Swiss universities – EPFL, the University of Bern, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, ETH Zurich, University of Lausanne, University of Zurich – with support of private philanthropy and under the patronage of the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI). Since 2021, the Swiss Polar Institute is a private foundation with public and private funding and has been recognised by the SERI as a “research institution of national importance”.

Originally based at the EPFL Campus in Lausanne (Vaud), the SPI relocated to the Alpine and Polar Environmental Research Centre (ALPOLE) on the Energypolis Campus in Sion (Valais, Switzerland) in December 2022. This new setting amidst the Swiss Alps enhances SPI’s support to and collaborations with the vibrant Swiss scientific community.
The Swiss Polar Institute (SPI) funds and supports Swiss polar and high-altitude research in Switzerland. SPI is committed to the Swiss scientific community by:

  • Developing initiatives and programmes to strengthen cutting-edge Swiss polar research that addresses global challenges;
  • Facilitating access to international research infrastructure and strategic polar science initiatives;
  • Federating the Swiss polar science community with a specific emphasis on interdisciplinary integration and the emergence of a new generation of scientists;
  • Enhancing the visibility and relevance of polar science with the Swiss public;
  • Supporting innovative partnerships and activities to better understand the links between the local and polar dimensions of climate change.
https://www.swisspolar.ch
Year Established
2016
Total Number of Staff
12
Contact Information

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https://www.swisspolar.ch
Year Established
2016
Total Number of Staff
12
Contact Information

Focus Areas

The Swiss Polar Institute supports science at all three poles of the Earth: the Arctic, Antarctic and remote high-altitude regions. The parallels between different polar regions is of special importance to the Swiss Polar Institute as the Swiss polar community is also much concerned about the impact of climate change in the Swiss Alps. It should be noted that the Swiss Polar Institute does not carry out research itself.

Since its inception, SPI has supported over 200 projects of all sizes (between 2.5k to 2'000k). Of these, over 130 are or were associated with the Arctic. SPI works in a bottom-up fashion, its calls for proposals are open to all fields of science.

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