The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) is the agency responsible for international cooperation within the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA). It is responsible for federal humanitarian aid and for the coordination of development activities and the cooperation with Eastern Europe together with other federal agencies. The SDC implements projects, supports programmes run by multilateral organisations and finances programmes in four operational areas: regional and global cooperation, humanitarian aid and cooperation with Eastern Europe.
The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) is the principal Swiss agency promoting scientific research. On behalf of the Swiss federal government, it supports research projects in all disciplines, from philosophy and biology to the nanosciences and medicine. Applications are evaluated through a competitive procedure based on peer reviews. The SNSF allocates grants worth a total of almost CHF 850 million to approximately 3’400 projects with more than 14,000 involved researchers each year (2014).
The National Research Council and its Presiding Board take the final funding decisions of the projects in the r4d programme.
The Steering Committee is responsible for the overall strategic management and supervision of the r4d programme. Other core tasks include defining parameters and criteria for the calls for proposals. The SDC and the SNSF are equally represented in the Steering Committee.
The Steering Committee is composed of the following members:
- Gabriella Spirli, SDC, representative of Regional Cooperation
- Nicolas Randin, SDC, representative of Global Cooperation
- Riccarda Caprez, SDC, Research Desk
- Regina Aebi-Müller, SNSF, member of the National Research Council, Programmes Division
- Stuart Lane, SNSF, member of the National Research Council, Programmes Division and of the Specialised Committee Careers
- Pierre Willa, SNSF, Programmes Division
The six Review Panel presidents form the International Advisory Board. It considers the funded research activities and the results from an overall strategic perspective in light of the objectives set by the SDC and the SNSF. It advises the Steering Committee on a regular basis.
The International Advisory Board is composed of the following members:
- Marjolein Dieleman, Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Ian Johnson, formerly Club of Rome, United Kingdom
- San Bilal, European Centre for Development Policy Management, Brussels, Belgium
- Dirk Messner, German Development Institute, Bonn, Germany
- Marie-Louise Newell, University of South Hampton, United Kingdom
- Anthony Whitbread, ICRISAT, Hyderabad, India, and University of Göttingen, Germany
r4d Programme Management
The SNSF is responsible for the implementation of the r4d programme. The r4d programme management assures coherence in programme coordination, launch of calls, support of the monitoring and reporting process, online communication, events organisation, external and internal communication and administrative tasks for the Steering Committee and the International Advisory Board. The following persons are working in the r4d management team: Claudia Rutte, Claudia Zingerli (Programmes Division) and Stephanie Hoppeler (InterCo Division). The r4d programme implementation is moreover supported by the Financial staff members, the members of the Communications Division, and the IT and Business Services staff of SNSF.