Switzerland – Africa: a workshop to bridge science and diplomacy
Bern, 17.08.2026 — Diplomats and scientists from Switzerland and Africa came together today at the University of Bern for a workshop entitled ‘Science Diplomacy in Practice’. The workshop was organised by the FDFA and the Universities of Bern and Basel with the aim of strengthening synergies between research, innovation, and diplomacy. Participants praised the breadth of existing initiatives and discussed new ways to more closely link the scientific community with Swiss and African diplomatic networks.
A workshop on science diplomacy between Switzerland and Africa took place today at the University of Bern under the title ‘Science Diplomacy in Practice’. Organised jointly by the FDFA's Africa and Francophonie Division, the University of Bern's Africa Initiative, and the University of Basel's Leading House Africa, the event brought together around a hundred participants. Researchers and representatives from universities and institutions of research and innovation engaged in discussions with Swiss and African diplomats, as well as with representatives of the Federal Administration.
The workshop comes under the Federal Council's Africa Strategy 2025–28, which is itself based on Switzerland's 2018 international strategy for education, research and innovation. The Africa Strategy 2025–28 identifies scientific cooperation as a cross-cutting objective and emphasises the role of science diplomacy as a tool for advancing Switzerland's foreign policy objectives. “In the field of innovation in particular, Africa is booming. Through its young and rapidly growing population, the entire continent offers considerable potential for science diplomacy,” says Ambassador Philipp Stalder, head of the Africa Division at the FDFA's State Secretariat. “That is why it is in Switzerland's interests to promote research cooperation with African institutions in a targeted manner.”
The discussions highlighted the numerous scientific partnerships already established between Switzerland and several African countries, such as the partnership between ETH Zurich and Ashesi University in Ghana, which is supported by SECO and has led to the country's first master's degree in mechatronics. The Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques in Côte d'Ivoire illustrates another aspect of this collaboration: it is coordinated by the Swiss Leading House Africa, hosted at Swiss TPH with the support of the University of Basel. The University of Bern's Africa Initiative supports a research cluster led by the Centre for Development and Environment on sustainable water and land management, carried out in collaboration with African partners.
Backed by a comprehensive ecosystem of programmes, funding instruments and cooperation networks, these partnerships provide a solid foundation for strengthening and expanding links in the fields of training, research and innovation.
By bringing together Swiss and African diplomats and scientific stakeholders, the workshop helped to identify concrete ways of better coordinating existing initiatives with Swiss and African diplomatic networks. The participants highlighted the potential of this ecosystem to address the remaining challenges, while emphasising the need to strengthen synergies between stakeholders in order to raise the profile of scientific partnerships and foster the development of new collaboration between Swiss and African partners.