Swiss army to massively expand research with universities

The Swiss armed forced wants to work more closely with research institutes such as ETH Zurich. Keystone / Christian Beutler

The Swiss army plans to massively expand its research budget by 2030 and work more closely with universities to bring the army up to speed technologically.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

Drone research, cyber security, surveillance technology –universities are already conducting research in areas such as these for the army. The funding body is the Federal Office for Defence Procurement (Armasuisse).

It plans to increase its research budget to 2% of the army’s budget by 2030. This is stated in the federal government’s current armament strategy.

Armasuisse has now specified what this could mean for Swiss universities: in future, it wants to invest around ten times as much money in university research projects as it does today. This could mean an increase from the current CHF9 million ($11.41 million) to CHF90 million per year.

The focus is on the Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Zurich and EPFL in Lausanne). Today, ETH acts as a kind of technology observer for the army – and in some areas, it is a driving force for start-ups in the armaments sector.

However, the federal government is calling for more in its current armaments strategy. ETH and the army are to reorganise their collaboration.

Deputy head of ArmaSuisse Thomas Rothacher hopes that ETH will point out technological gaps to the army in future. Together, they could then develop innovative solutions, says Rothacher. This would be a more systematic collaboration with significantly larger research projects.

Universities abandon their reticence

ETH Zurich did not want to comment on how it intends to collaborate with the army in future. It states that internal discussions are still ongoing.

In general, universities are now faced with the question of whether they want to conduct more research for the army. Thomas Rothacher from Armasuisse is confident.

In the past, he sensed a reluctance at universities due to ethical considerations among students and professors.

“Since the war in Ukraine, this reluctance has diminished and interest in doing something for defence has increased noticeably at universities,” says Rothacher.

ETH robotics professor Roland Siegwart is representative of this change in thinking. As a drone researcher, he works in a field that is highly interesting for the army. He has been carrying out projects with Armasuisse for years.

Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, his attitude and that of many other researchers in robotics has changed, says Siegwart.

“We see the threat situation and realise that it is important to support the Swiss army in defending itself,” says Siegwart. His students are now researching, for example, how drones can be used to capture other drones.

How far should research go?

Computers and software for drones developed by Siegwart and his team are now being used in the war in Ukraine, for example, says the robotics professor. This is because the research results are freely available on the internet.

Siegwart did not develop his drones as weapons, but most of them could be used for military purposes. ETH is looking for a way to deal with these issues – especially now that it is reconsidering its collaboration with Armasuisse.

Today, this research is limited to civilian technologies, some of which are dual-use, according to ETH. When asked whether it intends to continue in the future, it left the question open.

Translated from German by AI/jdp

How we work

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at [e-mail]