Swiss Polar Institute

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: