The ORD Strategy Council

Prof. Dr. Torsten Schwede, a renowned bioinformatician, has presided the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation since 2025. He is Professor of Structural Bioinformatics at the University of Basel and a research group leader at the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, where he has been teaching and conducting research on computational structural biology since 2001. From 2018 to 2024, Professor Schwede served as Vice President for Research at the University of Basel, where he was responsible for support for early-career researchers, internationalization, and digital research infrastructures.

Anna Fontcuberta i Morral has started her role as EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) President as of January 2025. She is a Full Professor in both Materials Science and Engineering and Physics and leads the Laboratory of Semiconductor Materials. Prior to her appointment, she served as the Associate Vice President for Centers and Platforms from 2021 until September 2024. Furthermore, she actively served at the Swiss National Foundations’ Research Council from October 2015 to April 2024 and at the presiding board from September 2020. Anna Fontcuberta i Morral holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Barcelona and a PhD in materials science from France. She worked as a postdoc at Caltech before co-founding Aonex Technologies, a startup that developed substrates for LEDs and solar cells. She went on to earn a Habilitation in experimental physics in Munich. Anna Fontcuberta i Morral actively promotes education and supports young scientists and engineers, especially young women pursuing technical careers.

After his apprenticeship as an electrician, Crispino Bergamaschi studied at the polytechnic HTL Brugg-Windisch. He received his MSc in Electrical Engineering and PhD (with honours) in Semiconductor Physics at the ETH Zürich. In 1995 he was elected as Professor of Microelectronics at the HTL Brugg Windisch and, in 1999, appointed Director of Research at the University of Applied Sciences Aargau. From 2001 to 2010 Professor Crispino Bergamaschi was Rector of the School of Engineering and Architecture at the University of Applied Sciences in Lucerne. Since January 2011 Professor Crispino Bergamaschi has been the Rector, and President of the Board of Directors, of the FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland. From 2015 to 2019 Professor Crispino Bergamaschi was president of the chamber of universities of applied sciences and vice president of swissuniversities.

Horst Biedermann has been rector of the University of Teacher Education St.Gallen since 2016. Previously, he was Professor of School Education and Director of the Center for Teacher Education at the European University of Flensburg and then Professor of Empirical Educational Sciences at Paris Lodron University Salzburg. He received his PhD and his habilitation in educational psychology and educational sciences at the University of Fribourg. Horst Biedermann’s research focuses on professionalization and ethics of teaching profession, educational processes and genesis in politics and morality, and the pitfalls of digital transformation.

Yves Flückiger, President of the Swiss academies of arts and sciences since January 2024, is a distinguished academic with expertise in labor economics, industrial organization, and public finances. He holds a degree in Economics and Sociology and a doctorate in Political Economy from the University of Geneva. Flückiger has an extensive background in research and teaching, having been a research fellow at Harvard and Oxford, and served in various academic positions including Vice-Rector and later Rector of the University of Geneva. He was President of swissuniversities from 2020 to 2023 and President of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) until July 2023.

Katharina M. Fromm was born in Germany and grew up in France, Germany and the USA. She studied chemistry at the University of Karlsruhe and at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes des Industries Chimiques (now ECPM) in Strasbourg, France. She received her PhD for work on organometallic compounds at the University of Karlsruhe, where – after her Habilitation at the University of Geneva in 2002 – she established a research group. Soon after, she accepted an SNSF (Swiss National Science Foundation) research professorship at the University of Basel. In October 2006, she commenced work as a full professor (Chair of Inorganic Chemistry) at the University of Fribourg. The work of her research group is centred on the bioinorganic chemistry of silver, silver compounds and nanoparticles, for example on their antimicrobial effect. A further research area is that of new compounds and nanomaterials for batteries.

Prof. Frédéric Herman serves as the Rector of the University of Lausanne (UNIL) since August 1, 2021. An expert on the interplay between climate change and mountain evolution, he navigates the institution through the complexities of the post-Covid era with a focus on human-centric management. Under his leadership, UNIL addresses key societal challenges through research, teaching, and academic engagement, emphasizing health, ecological transition, equality, and science’s societal role. His strategy involves fostering collaborative efforts and maintaining UNIL’s commitment to knowledge-sharing in diverse fields as part of its public-service mandate.

Regula Jöhl studied biotechnology at ETH Zurich in 1992 and obtained her doctorate in applied microbiology at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel in 1996. She has been Rector of the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences since February 2025. Prior to that, she spent 26 years in various roles at the FHNW, Kalaidos University of Applied Sciences, the University of Applied Sciences Rapperswil HSR and ETH Zurich.

Prof. Joël Mesot, an esteemed physicist with a focus on strongly correlated materials, has been leading as the President of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich since January 1, 2019. A graduate of ETH, his career spans significant roles including a full professorship at ETH Zurich and Lausanne (EPFL), and directorship at the Paul-Scherrer-Institute. His pioneering work on high-temperature superconductors and neutron spectroscopy has been recognized with awards like the Swiss Physical Society’s IBM Prize and the Latsis Prize from ETH Zurich. Mesot’s expertise has also contributed to the development of key research facilities and to the scientific community through his role as Editor of “Neutron News”.