Fostering Innovation

Zurich is one of the most innovative regions in Europe, thanks in large part to a high density of top-notch education and research institutions and a well-oiled system of knowledge and technology transfer. In 2023, UZH researchers reported 76 inventions and filed for 31 patents. They also entered into 18 license agreement with UZH and founded eight spin-offs.
The UZH Innovation Hub plays a central role in supporting innovation at the university. Various funding instruments provide targeted support for junior researchers and UZH students in the early phases of their projects – from idea to prototype, right through to testing and practical implementation. Support includes coaching or training in entrepreneurial skills at various levels, as well as early financial support programs (see below for more).

The Innovation Hub not only supports novel educational and funding formats but is also focused on building up strategic innovation priorities. In 2023, these priorities were life sciences, aerospace and aviation, digitalization and healthy longevity. In 2023, all innovation clusters joined forces and launched a public lecture series on various aspects of innovation. This well-received interdisciplinary event series harnessed a variety of perspectives to illuminate how new and innovative ideas come into being.
Two of these strategic priorities successfully established long-term cluster structures at the university in 2023: the healthy longevity cluster gave rise to the Healthy Longevity Center, while the aerospace and aviation cluster gave rise to the UZH Space Hub at the Innovation Park Zurich in Dübendorf. Both of these clusters work hand in hand with important stakeholders from the private and public sectors as well as the start-up scene.

The Healthy Longevity Center (HLC), funded by donations from the Velux Foundation, uses novel approaches to promote functional skills and quality of life in old age. The new center is unique in focusing on providing real-time data on the heterogeneity and complexity of lifelong development.
An international network counting more than 30 partner institutions in 2023, the HLC was built up over the course of many years and has been setting international standards in its field. Aging research illustrates just how the commitment of researchers and a funding strategy designed to make a long-term impact come together at UZH to create a unique and globally leading network of expertise. The foundation for the HLC was laid by the Center for Gerontology, established in 1998, and the International Normal Aging and Plasticity Imaging Center (INAPIC), which joined shortly thereafter, as well as the URPP Dynamics of Healthy Aging (2013-2024).
Healthy Longevity at UZH is pursuing three objectives: forming and maintaining networks in the academic and private sectors, exploiting new technologies, and providing a base for innovation. The Healthy Longevity Center takes an integrative approach, launching strategic international partnerships with institutions such as the WHO, Humboldt University of Berlin, the University of Queensland and King’s College London. It also works together with local actors such as the Senior Citizens University, the UZH Digital Society Initiative and University Hospital Zurich.
The center aims to decode the complexity of healthy aging and develop solutions that are tailored to individuals.  To achieve this goal, a number of interdisciplinary research and innovation groups are working hand in hand with private partners, using the latest technologies to rapidly translate research findings into concrete measures that effectively promote healthy aging.

The UZH Space Hub has risen to international prominence as a platform for connecting the scientific community and the emerging new space economy. It draws together research from the fields of Earth observation, life sciences, astrophysics and supercomputing as well as autonomous flight and navigation, promoting their application in commerce. In 2023, the Space Hub’s network included 34 research groups and over 25 institutions in Switzerland and abroad. UZH’s long-standing excellence in space research was confirmed in 2023 when Oliver Ullrich, director of the Space Hub, received the Life Sciences Award from the International Academy of Astronautics. This award honored Ullrich’s pioneering work in space life sciences, which has played no small part in helping establish this field of research.

In 2024, the UZH Space Hub will move into a specially renovated multi-user facility, with access to biolabs, workshops and offices, at the Innovation Park Zurich (IPZ) in Dübendorf – and an airfield conveniently located right next door. The new premises will not only significantly improve opportunities to collaborate with companies but also highlight the integrative concept of the Space Hub. Researchers will be able to use the military airfield, with the Swiss Sky Lab Foundation and the National Center for Biomedical Research in Space also on site. The hub works closely with the Swiss Air Force, the Air Force Center and the industrial airfield company Werkflugplatz Dübendorf AG, advancing research and development projects in this one-of-a-kind environment. In the future, it will play a pioneering role in the New Space Economy, along with other public sector and commercial partners from Switzerland and abroad.

The Innovation Hub offers a variety of courses and training programs to enhance the entrepreneurial skills of students and researchers at the university. Here, the open innovation approach is becoming increasingly important. This approach is geared toward cooperation between different stakeholders and systematically combines interdisciplinary perspectives and skills from the science community with the hands-on expertise of industrial companies, start-ups or the public sector. In open innovation programs such as the Innovators Camp, the Innovathon and the RiskOn, students are grouped into interdisciplinary teams to work on developing practical solutions to social and business challenges. This gets students right up close to real-world issues and enables them to expand their networks.
One example of how interdisciplinary student teams can advance promising ideas for the future is the pilot project Wholesome Living, which concluded in 2023. Students from UZH and the IAD Interaction Design program at the Zurich University of the Arts worked together with mentors, trainers and project partners UBS and AXA to develop innovative approaches to the topic of aging, with a focus on health and healthy finances. Participants developed a prototype app called Wholesome Living, a tracker for recording healthy habits and helping to maintain them.

Funding schemes for individuals such as the Entrepreneur Fellowship Program and the UZH Innovation Granthelp scientists bring sound ideas from research to market by turning them into innovative products, services and applications. In 2023, these programs issued eight fellowships and five grants to highly promising junior researchers, and a total CHF 1.15 million of third-party seed funding was awarded to biotech, medtech and digital projects. Researchers who received support from the Entrepreneur Fellowship scheme founded four new spin-off companies: metaLead Therapeutics AG, FimmCyte AG, Seito Biologics AG and askEarth. Success stories can be found here.
Last year, the Innovation Office of the Innovation Hub launched a new event series called Innovator Mornings in connection with their fellowship and grant programs. The events, which are aimed at entrepreneur fellows, grant recipients, coaches and UZH start-up entrepreneurs, promote exchange, targeted peer learning and networking within the innovation community. This initiative complements other efforts of the Innovative Office to facilitate access to networks and entrepreneurial and innovation topics for various target groups. This happened across 16 event formats last year, including the Startup Nights in Winterthur and the Scientifica science festival.

The Digitalization Initiative of the Zurich Higher Education Institutions (DIZH) runs its own innovation programs, expanding the funding options available for innovation projects within the UZH research community. In 2023, UZH teams received support through three different types of calls to advance 29 projects involving innovative digital technologies and applications in various areas. In addition, six Outreach and six Founder Call projects were awarded to UZH at the end of 2023, with the projects set to start in the first quarter of 2024. The Founder Call supports researchers transitioning from a start-up idea to the proof-of-concept phase. The ideas receiving support covered solutions for the visualization of historical texts, the development of AI-supported user handbooks, and the use of digital biomarkers for evaluating fatigue.

Find out more about the Innovation Hub here.