Together with the Swiss Government, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) has been promoting co-operation with scientists from Eastern European countries and from the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union since 1990 by implementing a scientific co-operation programme in five consecutive phases.
The commitment, which is part of a wider effort to strengthen economic, scientific and cultural ties between Switzerland and Eastern Europe, is now being renewed.

The SCOPES programme, which is financed by the SNSF together with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), boosts scientific co-operation between research groups in Switzerland and Eastern Europe as well as supporting institutional partnerships with scientific establishments in the target regions. The 148 projects and partnerships of the current phase 2005-2008 are nearing completion.

A call for SCOPES 2009-2011 has been launched in December 2008; the first projects will be able to start next autumn, a second call for proposals is planned for 2010. A total of CHF 16 million are available for the programme. As before, the following instruments are included: Joint Research Projects, Institutional Partnerships, Conference Grants, Preliminary and Valorisation Grants. There are no specific thematic requirements. However, the projects must, besides having scientific quality, show potential for application and development possibilities (capacity building) for the Eastern European partner(s).

New for partner countries is the division into two categories: a first group (West Balkan States, South Caucasus and Central Asia as well as Moldavia and the Ukraine) and a second group (Eastern European members of the EU as well as Croatia and Russia). Bilateral projects are only possible with partners in the first group. Tri- and multilateral partnerships can be launched with countries from both categories, whereby at least half of the Eastern partners must be from the first category. As before, research costs will only be covered for the Eastern European side. However, the co-ordination funding on the Swiss side will be increased, and the amounts per project depend upon the number of partners.
The programme focuses on the funding of research projects of high quality, on the improvement of institutional framework conditions that enable a further increase of the research performance, and on improved integration of individuals and institutions into the international scientific community.
This includes the participation and capacity building of female and young researchers.

SCOPES is open for activities within all scientific disciplines ranging from humanities and social sciences to natural sciences, biology and medicine. As SCOPES does not provide thematic priorities, scientists are free to submit in a bottom-up way any thematic proposal that may contribute to the objectives of the programme.

More information on the submission conditions and procedure are outlined below and on the SNSF web site: (http://www.snf.ch/E/international/abroad/scopes/Pages/default.aspx).