About SIRA
SIRA is a non-profit association with the goals of fostering national and international collaboration within the ICT research community and of promoting the visibility and recognition of research and advanced education in ICT and its related fields performed in Switzerland. SIRA acheives these goals by working to influence policy that impacts ICT research, coordinate ICT related efforts in research and advanced education both within Switzerland and with organizations aborad, and cultivating communication with industry, government, the press, and the general public.
SIRA was founded in 2012, as a continuation of SARIT (founded 1989) and a merge with SI-CHIP (founded 2011), with the purpose of strengthening the links between the Swiss research department heads in computer science and of promoting international collaboration. All professors in ICT-related topics at Swiss Universities, Federal Institutes of Technology and Universities of Applied Sciences, are invited to be individual members of SIRA. In 2012, SIRA joined the Swiss Informatics Society as a sub-group.
SIRA is the Swiss member of ERCIM. For this cooperation, SIRA plays the role of a "virtual research center" combining the efforts of the distributed Swiss IT research community and being its representative to all other ERCIM partners, for example, for the ERCIM AB Fellowship programme.
SIRA Activities
- provides direct access to the list of member Informatics Professors and Departments in Switzerland
- organizes an annual conference of Swiss Informatics Department Heads,
- moderates a mailing list to keep its members informed about SIRA news and Swiss IT events
- participates in the Website IT Switzerland (I-S) showing IT curricula in universities and universities of applied sciences FHS/HES,
- connects Swiss IT research groups with ERCIM, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics and its exchange program for researchers,
- nominates the Swiss delegates to IFIP, the International Federation of Information Processing Societies,
- operates a contact office to promote and administrate exchange programs, fellowships and other activities for IT researchers from and to Switzerland.