International prestige glorifies the universities that are present in Western Switzerland. They are integrated in international research programmes and benefit, notably, from collaboration with the best world institutions for post graduate studies:
- According to the prestigious international scientific magazine Nature, Switzerland ranks first in the classification of the 31 nations that produce 98% of world scientific research!
- Geneva, the cradle of CERN, ranks 2nd of the best universities of the planet in the field of genetics and 6th in the field of physics.
- The Faculty of Sciences of the University of Geneva accommodates 2 poles of national research (Frontiers in Genetics, in the biology section; Materials with New Electronic Properties, in the physics section).
- In 2003, the University of Geneva was co-opted into the League of European Research Universities (LERU).
- The EPFL is a scene of exchange and encounter. With 107 nationalities on the campus and more than 505 professors coming from abroad, the school is one of the most cosmopolitan university places in the world.
- Fribourg was one of the first universities in Switzerland to put into practice the Bologna Declaration, which aims to harmonise university degree courses at a European level.
- Two of the 14 national research poles of Switzerland are based at the University of Bern. Another of these research poles is based at the IDIAP, a research institute located in the Valais.
- The University of Lausanne is also a very active research centre of international repute, thanks to the projects achieved by more than 125 teams and for more than 100 million Swiss francs per year. It accommodates close to 10,000 students and 2,200 researchers.
- The internationalisation of the University of Lausanne has been on the agenda for several years: this policy of opening itself to the world allowed it to be known and to become a quality collaboration partner of Europe and the USA, as well as of the rest of the world.
- The Institute of Micro-technology (IMT) at the University of Neuchâtel enjoys international repute.
Financed by the cantons or by the Swiss Confederation, they welcome first-class scientists and train specialists capable of meeting in-depth economic and research challenges.
The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne (EPFL), the Universities of Bern, Fribourg, Geneva, Lausanne and Neuchâtel, and the network of Universities of applied sciences of western Switzerland (HES-SO) are known worldwide for their training in the field of technologies, economics and law.
Several Swiss institutes are also referred to in the world, in their respective fields:
- the Swiss Research Foundation in Micro-technology (FSRM)
- the Institute of Advanced Studies in Public Administration (IDHEAP)
- the famous International Institute for Management Development (IMD)
- the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES)
- the Dalle Molle Institute for Perceptive Artificial Intelligence (IDIAP)
- the International Institute of Management in Technology (IIMT)
- the Swiss Centre of Electronics and Micro-technology (CSEM)
- the Graduate Institute of International Studies (IUHEI)
- the Maurice E. Müller Institute for Biomechanics (MIB)
- the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
