Fostering Innovation

Social and technological in­novations from universities provide ad­ded value for society and the eco­nomy, and power a country’s ability to in­novate and compete. The UZH Innovation Hub offers support for creating, funding and trans­ferring in­novations into practical use at the University of Zurich. It em­powers researchers to identify, develop and realize the in­novative potential of an idea, an in­vention or a research finding. Accelerating the trans­lation of academic insights into practical ap­plications is one of the core tasks of the Innovation Hub.

Besides the course program and funding measures, the Innovation Hub provides sup­port services in various phases and main­tains close relations with partners in industry and the public sector, as well as relevant national and inter­national networks.

In order to inspire people to in­novate and engage in entrepreneur­ship, as well as to support promising initiatives, the UZH Innovation Hub presented over 40 offers and services in 2024. This was also pos­sible thanks to partner­ships with industry, the public sector, univer­sities and foundations. Moreover, close collaboration with stake­holders at the University of Zurich and in the Swiss innovation network is of key importance.

The offers include seed funding, workshops, training courses and advice. Experts from the start-up and in­novation ecosystem are actively involved in the selection of projects and provide support and coaching to the talents in the program. Here are the four new or ex­panded offers from 2024.

Modular bootcamps have been teaching students, doctoral candidates and post­docs across the University the basics of in­novation and entre­preneurship since 2019. The program was re­designed in 2024. In the first module, participants gain insights into ideation methods and look at their own entre­preneurial mindset. Altogether, the series of boot­camps covers three modules that build on one another.

At the end of 2024, work also began on de­veloping an innovation and entrepreneurship minor program at Master’s level with seed funding from the UZH Teaching Fund (ULF). This inter­disciplinary training will be accessible to students from all faculties, com­bining scientific theory with practical skills and involving partners in practice. The minor program at Master’s level will be launched in the fall semester of 2026.

The early-stage Innovation Grants support the process from an initial idea to a fully fleshed-out and validated value pro­position, and are aimed at early-career re­searchers from all disciplines. In 2024, besides the funding, 11 in­novation grantees received support from ex­perienced coaches in the start-up scene and were able to take part in new inter­disciplinary peer-group work­shops. By discussing their projects in a wide range of fields, such as social psycho­logy, remote sensing and spectro­scopy as well as information and com­munications law, the early-career re­searchers not only gained fresh impetus but also critically examined the in­novation and market potential of their own ideas.

Support for developing a research-based idea is ac­celerated with UZH Entrepreneur Fellowships in the areas of bio­tech, medtech, digital innovation and – new since 2024 – sustainable society. The goal of the Entrepreneur Fellowships is to transfer research findings to the market by founding a start-up with commercial potential. During this phase, the entre­preneurs are each mentored by an academic coach from the start-up scene. In 2024, 21 members of staff, doctoral candidates and postdocs from the Faculty of Science, the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Zurich applied for one of the funding lines. Seven of them received a fellowship.

“We are expanding our offers and funding measures to ap­peal to target groups across the University and are continuously optimizing our existing offers. The aim is that in­novation projects from as broad a range of disciplines as possible are initiated by re­searchers and successfully implemented in practice,” explains Maria Olivares. For instance, following the successful pilot in the previous year, the Innovator Mornings were added to the regular program in 2024. Al­together, 20 participating researchers show­cased the progress of their projects and answered con­structively critical questions from their peers, former fellows and grantees, experts, coaches, and founders from the start-up scene. Meanwhile, 110 people take part in the Innovator Mornings.

The success of the funding pipe­line with the Innovation Grants and Entrepreneurship Fellowships can be seen in the number of start-ups founded, em­phasizing just how im­portant it is for the University to support in­novation in the long term. On average, half of the entre­preneurs supported go on to found their own company.

In 2024, two of the six spin-offs from UZH emerged from the Entrepreneur Fellowship projects. All six newly founded spin-offs are bringing in­novative research ideas to market, including an analytical labor­atory that fits on a single chip, a urine test for the early de­tection of prostate cancer, and the preservation of organs for trans­plantation. This raises the number of UZH spin-offs since 1999 to a total of 161.

What’s more, 61 invention dis­closures and 35 patent applications were sub­mitted by UZH researchers last year. These numbers have remained at a con­sistently high level, reflecting the innovation potential at UZH. Protecting research-based intel­lectual property is essential, as in many cases it paves the way for bringing in­novations to market. This is often vitally important for products and applications from the fields of life sciences.

Last year, eight young com­panies were also awarded the UZH Startup Label. This label under­lines the trust that UZH has in the newly founded com­panies and is based on strict criteria.

Combining successful innovation efforts within visible organizational units, known as in­novation clusters, is another form of strategic support from the University that actively pro­motes the translation of research insights into benefits for society.

Two inter­nationally established innovation clusters are the Healthy Longevity Center (founded in 2022 by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences) and the UZH Space Hub (founded in 2018 by the Central Innovation Cluster, see below). Both clusters initially re­ceived seed funding from the UZH Innovation Hub and now support them­selves financially. The University provided two further drivers of innovation with the innovation clusters in life sciences as part of University Medicine Zurich (UMZH), including the UZH Translation Medicine Accelerator and in digitalization.

Establishing infra­structure dedicated to the mission of in­novation and translation is a long-term project. The DRIVE program (Drive Research-based Innovation Ecosystems), launched in 2024, enables the develop­ment of new inter­disciplinary networks. It is aimed at researchers, inventors and entrepreneurs with strong connections to industry and a keen interest in com­mercialization and technology transfer. Every year, a total of up to CHF 200,000 is awarded to initiatives aimed at inter­disciplinary cooperation between academia, industry, the public sector, foundations, start-ups and other stake­holders in innovation.

The UZH Space Hub com­bines and coordinates the aero­space activities of the University of Zurich, in the areas of space life sciences, terrestrial observation, astro­physics and drone research/autonomous systems. It significantly consolidated its role in Zurich in 2024. After moving into Hall 4 at the former Dübendorf military airfield, the team is now based at the Switzerland Innovation Park Zurich (IPZ). The Center for Space and Aviation Switzerland and Liechtenstein was also founded in 2024, led by the UZH Space Hub as one of seven co­operation partners. This new, inter­nationally oriented and regionally anchored center is supported by a broad co­alition of academic and industrial partners from German-speaking Switzer­land and Liechtenstein.

An initial major milestone was achieved with the signing of a memo­randum of understanding between the Center for Space and Aviation Switzerland and Liechtenstein, Switzerland Innovation Park Zurich and Starlab Space (a joint venture of Airbus, Voyager Space, Mitsubishi Cor­poration and MDA Space). This means one of just three science parks world­wide will be estab­lished at at IPZ in Dübendorf, and much of the logistics for the use of the succes­sor to the International Space Station, Starlab, will be con­ducted here. As a result, the canton of Zurich is becoming the European hub for the com­mercial use of low Earth orbit. With its innovation activity, especially in the life sciences, the University of Zurich is excel­lently positioned to play an im­portant role.