Ensuring Excellence,
Shaping the Future

Through­out 2025, UZH con­tin­ued to sys­te­ma­ti­cal­ly pro­mote pre­ci­sion me­di­cine, with de­mon­stra­ble suc­cess. Four re­search pro­jects will en­ter the cli­ni­cal phase in 2026. This step high­lights the effec­tive­ness of fund­ing from Uni­ver­sity Me­di­cine Zurich (UMZH). Re­search, data anal­ysis and cli­ni­cal ap­pli­cation are be­com­ing in­creasing­ly in­ter­twined. The goal is to trans­late new sci­en­ti­fic find­ings into the­ra­pies more quickly, and to make can­cer treat­ment more tar­get­ed and effective.

As re­search and cli­ni­cal prac­tice con­verge, the need for ro­bust data in­fra­struc­ture grows. With this in mind, the cen­tral bio­me­di­cal in­for­mat­ics plat­form entered its test­ing phase at the end of 2025. It allows re­searchers to in­te­grate and anal­yze ex­ten­sive cli­ni­cal and mo­le­cular data efficiently.

UZH is also ex­pand­ing its com­pe­ten­cies from a struc­tural stand­point. A new­ly estab­lished pro­fes­so­rial chair in gen­der me­di­cine allows gen­der-speci­fic per­spec­tives to be per­ma­nent­ly in­te­grat­ed into re­search and teach­ing, there­by con­tri­but­ing to more dif­fe­ren­tia­ted and ef­fec­tive pre­cision me­di­cine approaches.

These de­ve­lop­ments are sup­port­ed by a close­ly in­ter­linked net­work: the LOOP Zurich, the Tu­mor Pro­filer Cen­ter, and the Com­pre­hen­sive Can­cer Cen­ter Zurich bring to­gether their wealth of ex­per­tise under the um­brel­la of UMZH, which in­cludes UZH, ETH Zurich and the uni­ver­sity’s four hospitals.

The Children & Can­cer and Muoni­verse pro­jects mark the allo­cation of two of the six new­ly ap­proved Na­tion­al Cen­ters of Com­pe­tence in Re­search (NCCRs) in the sixth series to UZH – a his­tor­ic suc­cess re­sult­ing from long-term stra­teg­ic investments.

For the first time, the Chil­dren & Can­cer NCCR (UZH/University of Lausanne) is uni­ting pre­vious­ly frag­ment­ed re­search ef­forts in pe­diat­ric on­co­lo­gy in Switzer­land, in­te­grat­ing ba­sic re­search, in­no­va­tion and cli­ni­cal appli­cation. The key fo­cus is on more pre­cise dia­gno­ses and per­so­na­lized the­ra­pies that account for the spe­cific bio­lo­gical cha­rac­te­ris­tics of child­hood tu­mors. Among other ini­tia­tives, the es­tab­lish­ment of a na­tion­al plat­form for pre­cise tu­mor cha­rac­ter­iza­tion is planned. Uni­versity Me­di­cine Zurich’s strong stand­ing in pre­cision on­co­logy pro­vides ex­cel­lent con­ditions for such projects.

The Muoni­verse NCCR (UZH/Paul Scherrer Institute) is un­lock­ing the po­ten­tial of muon re­search for both aca­dem­ic and applied pur­poses. Not only is muon beam tech­no­logy cru­cial in par­ticle phy­sics, it also opens up new pos­si­bi­li­ties in ma­te­rial re­search and de­ve­lop­ment. This re­search fo­cus leve­rages leading in­ter­na­tio­nal joint re­search in­fra­struc­ture and streng­thens the net­work of par­ti­ci­pat­ing in­sti­tu­tions in a field that is firmly fo­cused on the future.

The Chil­dren & Can­cer pro­ject will re­ceive ap­proxi­mately CHF 17.0 million in fund­ing from the Swiss fe­deral go­vern­ment over the next four years, while Muoni­verse will re­ceive CHF 14.3 million. In addi­tion, UZH re­searchers are par­ti­ci­pat­ing in the new NCCR on cli­mate extremes, CLIM+, which has ETH Zurich and the Uni­ver­sity of Bern as its home in­sti­tu­tions. UZH re­mains the home in­sti­tution of the Evolv­ing Lan­guage NCCR, which was estab­lished in 2019. All NCCRs bols­ter cutting-edge re­search at UZH in the long term.

The TRANS­FORM fund­ing line is ex­pli­cit­ly in­tend­ed to ac­ce­le­rate re­searchers’ bot­tom-up ini­tia­tives and trans­fer them to per­ma­nent struc­tures that be­ne­fit the de­ve­lop­ment of the uni­ver­sity as a whole, both by creat­ing new units and re­or­ga­niz­ing exis­ting ones. Two new TRANS­FORM pro­jects were ap­proved in 2025: firstly, a Res­pon­sible AI Cluster will be estab­lished at UZH to fos­ter res­pon­sible re­search, teach­ing and know­ledge trans­fer in re­la­tion to ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, pro­mote techno­logy trans­fer and con­so­li­date in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary ex­per­tise at the uni­versity. Plans in­clude estab­lishi­ng a pro­fes­so­rial chair at the De­part­ment of In­for­matics and the De­part­ment of Mathe­ma­tical Mo­del­ing and Ma­chine Learn­ing, as well as a Co­or­di­na­tion Office. What’s more, the Crime­Lab^UZH ini­tia­tive aims to estab­lish an in­ter­fa­culty re­search cen­ter. The goal is to pur­sue in­te­gra­tion and col­la­bo­ration among va­rious dis­ci­plines, in­clud­ing me­di­cine, law, arts and so­cial sci­ences, eco­no­mics, theo­logy and re­li­gious stu­dies, in order to con­duct in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary re­search on the causes of cri­mi­na­lity, con­trol me­cha­nisms, vic­ti­mi­zation and new types of crime. The Res­pon­sible AI Clus­ter will re­ceive CHF 1.7 million in seed fund­ing, while Crime­Lab^UZH will be al­lo­cat­ed CHF 1.5 million.

Tech­no­logy plat­forms en­able top-tier re­search by pro­vid­ing aca­de­mics with ac­cess to state-of-the-art equip­ment, meth­ods and ex­per­tise. UZH ope­rates around 35 such plat­forms, in­clud­ing 12 stra­te­gic tech­no­lo­gy plat­forms, which are used by over 4,000 re­searchers from all UZH fa­cul­ties each year, as well as ex­tern­al re­searchers from both aca­demia and in­dustry. In ad­di­tion, 10 UZH pro­jects have been in­cluded in the 2025 Swiss Road­map for Re­search In­fra­struc­tures – the country’s highest award for ex­cel­lence in re­search infrastructure.

Because fi­nanc­ing this in­fra­struc­ture pre­sents a chal­lenge, a work­ing group led by UZH has de­ve­loped a new stra­te­gy for the plan­ning, go­ver­nance and fi­nan­cing of stra­te­gic in­fra­struc­ture across Switzer­land with­in the frame­work of swiss­uni­ver­sities. Mean­while, an in­ter­nal finan­cing in­stru­ment has been created to secure UZH’s role as a leader in highly de­ve­loped re­search in­fra­struc­tures across many disciplines.

Third-party fund­ing is a key in­di­cator of qua­lity and com­pe­ti­tive­ness in re­search. In 2025, 21% of UZH’s to­tal bud­get came from third-party funds, amount­ing to a total of CHF 360 million.

UZH achieved a lead­ing po­si­tion in com­pe­ti­tive third-party funds from the Swiss Na­tion­al Sci­ence Foun­dation (SNSF), which was awar­ded as a sub­sti­tute dur­ing Switzer­land’s par­tial ex­clusion from the Ho­ri­zon Europe re­search pro­gram be­tween 2021 and 2024. Of the total CHF 611 million awar­ded in fund­ing, CHF 78 million went to UZH, mak­ing it the uni­ver­sity with the second high­est fund­ing in Switzer­land, after ETH Zurich.

UZH has also been suc­cess­ful with the high­ly com­pe­ti­tive fund­ing in­stru­ments of the Euro­pean Re­search Coun­cil (ERC), to which it has once again had full access since 2025: nine Con­so­li­da­tor Grants, two Start­ing Grants and one Proof of Con­cept Grant were awar­ded to re­searchers at UZH, with the Fa­cul­ty of Arts and So­cial Sci­ences, the Fa­culty of Busi­ness, Eco­no­mics and In­for­ma­tics, and the Fa­culty of Me­di­cine being no­tably suc­cess­ful. What’s more, Ohad Me­dalia, pro­fes­sor of bio­che­mis­try at UZH, suc­cess­ful­ly se­cured a pres­ti­gious ERC Sy­ner­gy Grant for the second time in 2025. His in­ter­na­tional re­search pro­ject on the struc­tu­ral or­ga­ni­za­tion of chro­mo­somes dur­ing cell di­vi­sion has been al­lo­cat­ed a total of €10.3 million in fund­ing, with €3.3 million awar­ded to UZH.

Two fur­ther exam­ples il­lus­trate the scope of third-party funds suc­cess­ful­ly se­cured by UZH in 2025: the CHEF re­search ini­tia­tive (Swiss High Energy Phy­sics for the FCC, Fa­cul­ty of Sci­ence) for the ad­vance­ment of Swiss par­ticle phy­sics has been awar­ded CHF 4.8 million from the State Se­cre­ta­riat for Edu­ca­tion, Re­search and In­no­va­tion (SERI). Under the leader­ship of UZH, the pro­gram se­cures Switzer­land’s par­ti­ci­pa­tion in the planned Fu­ture Cir­cu­lar Col­li­der (FCC) pro­ject at the Euro­pean Or­ga­ni­zation for Nu­clear Research (CERN).

The Ja­cobs Cen­ter for Pro­duc­tive Youth De­ve­lop­ment (Fa­culty of Arts and So­cial Sci­ences, Fa­culty of Busi­ness, Eco­no­mics and In­for­ma­tics) stu­dies the de­ve­lop­ment of chil­dren and ado­les­cents in so­cial, eco­no­mic and cul­tu­ral con­texts. The core fund­ing is pro­vi­ded by UZH and the Ja­cobs Foun­da­tion in equal parts. The cen­ter also se­cures an ad­di­tio­nal CHF 1 to 2 million in third-party funds per year. In 2025, it suc­cess­ful­ly raised CHF 3.8 million, of which CHF 3.2 million was al­lo­ca­ted to the Swiss Ed­Lab pro­ject – a na­tion­al plat­form that ap­plies find­ings from edu­ca­tion and de­ve­lop­ment re­search to prac­ti­cal applications.

UZH con­tri­butes sig­ni­fi­cant­ly to the in­no­va­tive strength of both Zurich as a city of busi­ness and re­search, and Switzer­land as a whole. Over the past four years, UZH has ave­raged 37 pa­tent ap­pli­ca­tions and six spin-off com­pa­nies per year, which de­ve­lop UZH re­search find­ings into com­mer­cial­ly vi­able pro­ducts and services.

The UZH In­no­vation Hub – the cen­tral hub for pro­mot­ing in­no­va­tion at UZH – is gra­dual­ly ex­pand­ing its es­tab­lished in­stru­ments. The DRIVE struc­tural fund­ing pro­gram was launched in 2024 for this pur­pose. It has at­tract­ed sig­ni­fi­cant at­ten­tion, hav­ing re­ceived 26 pro­ject sub­mis­sions from re­search groups. The fund­ing port­fo­lio, which was pre­vious­ly aimed at re­searchers, was ex­pand­ed to in­clude stu­dents as a tar­get group in 2025. With the new In­no­va­tion & Entre­pre­neur­ship study pro­gram, UZH is in­tro­duc­ing its first Mas­ter’s pro­gram that sys­te­ma­ti­cal­ly teaches entre­pre­neurial skills and is open to stu­dents from all fa­cul­ties. The three-semes­ter mi­nor pro­gram en­cou­ra­ges in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary team­work and pro­vides a strong prac­ti­cal fo­cus through the in­volve­ment of ex­ter­nal part­ners. Launched in the Fall Semester of 2026, the pro­gram re­pre­sents a sig­ni­fi­cant step to­ward in­te­grat­ing en­tre­pre­neurial think­ing into the early stages of stu­dents’ aca­demic education.

At the same time, the In­no­va­tion Hub im­proved the in­sti­tu­tio­nal frame­work for ex­pan­ding in­dus­try par­tner­ships. A key com­po­nent of this is the new­ly created role of in­dus­try en­gage­ment ma­na­ger, whose duty it is to struc­ture and pro­fes­sio­na­lize access to stra­teg­ic part­ners. In ad­dition, open in­no­va­tion for­mats – such as the world’s first Star­lab Space Hack­athon in No­vem­ber 2025 – strength­ened UZH’s po­si­tion as a driv­ing force for leading-edge innovations.

The UZH Space Hub has a key role in estab­lish­ing an in­ter­na­tio­nal space eco­sys­tem in Zurich. Since 2024, a key part­ner­ship has been in place with the Star­lab Space con­sor­tium, which aims to create the Euro­pean base for the planned space sta­tions at In­no­va­tion Park Zurich (IPZ). In col­la­bo­ra­tion with the Center for Space and Avia­tion Switzer­land and Liechten­stein (CSA), the Space Hub stra­te­gi­cal­ly ex­pand­ed its in­ter­na­tional net­work in 2025 and has pre­pared for part­ner­ships with Space Flo­rida, the Uni­ver­sity of Flo­rida and the Vo­ya­ger In­sti­tute for Space, Tech­no­logy and Ad­vance­ment. These part­ner­ships open up new access to in­fra­struc­ture, re­search and mar­kets, help­ing to po­si­tion Switzer­land In­no­va­tion Park Zurich as a hub for a fu­ture space eco­nomy in Europe.

A close con­nec­tion be­tween re­search, teach­ing and clin­ical care is a de­ci­sive fac­tor in Zurich’s suc­cess as a me­dic­al hub. In this con­text, UZH has been sup­port­ing the Ad­vanced Cli­ni­cian Sci­en­tist Pro­gram (ACS) since 2024. This pro­gram is aimed at phy­si­cians who have com­ple­ted their re­si­den­cy and are pur­su­ing an aca­dem­ic career, mean­ing they are ac­tive in both clin­ical prac­tice and re­search.

In 2025, eight pro­mis­ing early-career re­search­ers were se­lec­ted from a total of 80 ap­pli­cants. After ex­cel­ling in a high­ly com­pe­ti­tive se­lection pro­cess, the suc­cess­ful can­di­dates will now have time de­di­cated to re­search, ac­cess to tech­nical staff, and ge­ne­rous fund­ing for in­de­pen­dent pro­jects. The pro­gram pur­pose­ful­ly re­in­for­ces links be­tween cut­ting-edge re­search and clin­ical prac­tice. The next round of ap­pli­ca­tions be­gins in the spring of 2026.

In 2025, the Trans­la­tion­al Me­di­cine Ac­ce­le­rator (TMA) at Uni­ve­rsity Me­di­cine Zu­rich (UMZH) once again sup­port­ed re­search­ers in de­ve­lop­ing me­dic­al in­no­va­tions, from the re­search stage to mar­ket readi­ness. It pro­vides tai­lored con­sult­ing, entre­pre­neurial train­ing, men­tor­ing and ac­cess to in­dustry part­ners and in­vest­ors to help trans­form pro­mis­ing pro­jects into spin-offs, col­la­bo­ra­tions or partnerships.

The Zu­rich Hub for Drug and De­vice De­ve­lop­ment (ZH3D) was also launched in 2025. While the TMA pri­ma­rily sup­ports early trans­la­tion­al stages and com­mer­cial im­ple­men­tation, ZH3D pro­vides tech­nic­al, re­gu­la­tory and qua­li­ty-assured de­ve­lop­ment of ac­tive in­gre­dients and me­dic­al de­vi­ces in or­der to pre­pare pro­jects for cli­nic­al trials and mar­ket access. To­gether, TMA and ZH3D seam­less­ly in­te­grate all phases, from con­cept to clini­cal ap­pli­ca­tion, ac­ce­le­rat­ing the trans­fer of re­search find­ings to clini­cal set­tings for the be­ne­fit of patients.

Now­a­days, sci­en­tific re­search is in­creas­ing­ly col­la­bo­ra­tive, in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary and in­ter­na­tional­ly or­gan­ized. As a result, there is a grow­ing need for clear rules sur­round­ing author­ship, as this is es­sen­tial to build­ing trust in re­search re­sults and shap­ing sci­en­ti­fic careers. With this in mind, UZH issued guide­lines on author­ship in 2025. They sup­ple­ment the or­di­nance on sci­en­ti­fic mis­con­duct at UZH and es­tab­lish trans­pa­rent cri­te­ria for the fair and full re­cog­ni­tion of all sig­ni­fi­cant con­tri­bu­tors. With this mea­sure, UZH re­in­for­ces the stand­ards of good sci­en­ti­fic prac­tice and creates a re­li­able frame­work, par­ti­cu­lar­ly for re­searchers in the early stages of their careers.