To achieve our mission, we rely on funding from the Swiss Confederation, who has continuously been our largest funder for over 25 years (see this evolution). Building on this stable foundation, our independent status, and the excellence of our workforce and network, we have established the institute as a reference for life science data. This has made us a trusted partner and leader in a range of competitive grants, collaborations and services. In our work on and for cutting-edge technologies, our principal investment is in people. Explore the Sankey chart below for detailed insights into how our financial resources are distributed and allocated.
Supported by competitive and governmental funding, investing in human expertise
Powered by the Swiss Confederation
The largest and most stable funder of SIB is the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI). This base contribution accounts for 36% of our institute’s income. The SERI grant for 2024 was reduced by CHF 0.3 million, representing a drop of 2.8% compared with the initially allocated amount.
A unique funding model to sustain open resources
The largest part of SERI’s base contribution is devoted to our open resources (CHF 6.6 million, 57%). This subsidy is complemented by many additional funding sources, including competitive grants and contributions from the industry. In addition, most resources are also supported by short-term research funds held at partner institutions.
One-third of SIB’s income comes from competitive funds
In 2024, CHF 10.1 million (31%) of SIB’s income originated from competitive funds, such as European public-private projects and collaborations with industry. SIB’s independent status, the diversity of skills of its employees, and the full professional support they offer, make the institute a desirable partner.
Keeping up with increasing demands
Funding for open resources and IT capacities is complemented by reserves (900K) to keep up with strong demand, and in accordance with the investment strategy for the 2021-2024 period.
A centre of excellence that delivers
Our centre of excellence includes training and bioinformatics services to universities, private companies and hospitals (see P. 32). It is mostly funded through collaboration and competitive grants – many international.
Lean and effective management & support
The management and support functions expenses (CHF 4.3 million, 13%) cover day-to-day administration, people and culture, finance, communication, legal and IT support. These support teams also contribute to projects in the key pillars, for which the funds are allocated to the relevant activities (e.g. legal expertise for SPHN is allocated to Coordination).
Investing in people at the heart of research
CHF 24.6 million (74%) of SIB’s expenses are devoted to our people, with 76% for employees at the SIB Hub and 24% for employees embedded in partner institutions. This reflects our unique and efficient model that anchors open science infrastructure in research.
Bioinformatics: a multi-disciplinary field encompassing a large variety of life science data expertise.