>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 97 18:55:20 -0800
Hello everybody,
The new Swiss State Secretary for Education and Science
Mr. Charles Kleiber will visit the U.S. next January. He will spend some
time in the SF Bay area. I asked him if we could meet to discuss the
the situation of Swiss scientists in the bay area and present the Swiss-
List. Mr Kleiber kindly accepted. Laurent Mieville, Laurent Piguet, and I
met to discuss what could be of interest in this forecoming conversation.
We would like now to have your opinion about your situation here and about
what we prepared.
Here is the outline of the subjects we (Laurents) discussed:
1) A certain number of young Swiss researchers who came in this region to
complete their training (often on grants of the Swiss National Fund for
Research) find more compelling or easier to stay in the U.S. than to go
back to Switzerland.
We think the main difficulty that Swiss scientists here have to find a
position in Switzerland is due to the lack of contacts with their peers in
Switzerland. As a remedy, we propose to enhance the communication between
our community and the community involved in science and technology in
Switzerland. For that purpose we propose:
- Use modern means of communication to enhance and facilitate the
contacts (swiss-list, electronic newsletter...).
- Organize a forum where Swiss companies would come to the Bay Area and
present their activities , discuss with prospective scientists and draw
contacts (such a forum is organized fo French companies and scientists).
2) Scientists and engineers in the U.S. seem more prone than their
colleagues in Switzerland to have their career take a turn like going
from academic research to private R&D or become an entrepreneur.
Our feeling is that career changes are perceived in Switzerland more as
a risk than an opportunity. As a matter of fact some risks are real and
the chances of reward through success might be to low to compensate.
In our case the risk we take by coming here are for instance the lack of
recognition in Switzerland or the risk of losing retirement coverage.
Some solutions to help Swiss scientists abroad go back to Switzerland
and in general to smooth career changes could be:
- The solutions proposed under 1)
- Develop fellowships aimed at allowing talented scientists to go back
to Switzerland. Profile is an example but is very limited.
- Suppress factors which prevent an easy return, e.g. no rights for
unemployement benefits, retirement plans incompatible... Especially,
important after a longer stay in the U.S.
- Fund small companies to help them develop their products. Create a
good environment for the development of start up. eg. SBIR , STTR
projects.
- Use tax exemptions to help innovative small companies.
Please do not hesitate to comment on the list. This discussion is relevant
to most of us, and this is a unique opportunity to share your views with
somebody able to bring improvements
Laurent
Laurent Vuilleumier e-mail: L_Vuilleumier_at_lbl.gov
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory phone : (510) 486-6108
1 Cyclotron Road, 29C fax : (510) 486-7303
Berkeley, CA 94720
==========================================================================
This message was posted through the Stanford campus mailing list
server. If you wish to unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the
message body of "unsubscribe swiss-list" to majordomo_at_lists.stanford.edu
Received on Tue Mar 11 1997 - 12:07:51 PST
