News

Ursula Keller wins “Swiss Nobel” Marcel Benoist Prize- for pioneering work in ultrafast lasers

Farewell: the NCCR MUST ended - on June 30, 2022

MUST2022 Conference- a great success!

New scientific highlights- by MUST PIs Wörner, Chergui, and Richardson

FELs of Europe prize for Jeremy Rouxel- “Development or innovative use of advanced instrumentation in the field of FELs”

Ruth Signorell wins Doron prizefor pioneering contributions to the field of fundamental aerosol science

New FAST-Fellow Uwe Thumm at ETH- lectures on Topics in Femto- and Attosecond Science

International Day of Women and Girls in Science- SSPh asked female scientists about their experiences

New scientific highlight- by MUST PIs Milne, Standfuss and Schertler

EU XFEL Young Scientist Award for Camila Bacellar,beamline scientist and group leader of the Alvra endstation at SwissFEL

Prizes for Giulia Mancini and Rebeca Gomez CastilloICO/IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Optics & Ernst Haber 2021

Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to RESOLV Member Benjamin List- for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis

Hans Jakob Wörner invited to give the „New Horizons Solvay Lectures” - online, October 5, 12 and 19

Unusual keynote talk at an international scientific conference- Do photons show gender bias?

NCCR MUST at Scientifica 2021- Lightning, organic solar cells, and virtual molecules

TT, IP and Start-up Support

Member of MUST are encouraged to use their local support structures for IP protection (University, start-up, company), Technology Transfer (see Steps to TT) and start-up support. For independent support and help in finding resources, MUST members can also contact the scientific officer (who will also use outside legal advice if needed).
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TT Support

Switzerland supports general TT activities on an

International level
- EUresearch
National level
- InnoSuisse (Commission for Technology and Innovation) with support through National Thematic Networks (NTN), Innovation Mentors (IM), Physical and Web-based Platforms and Start-up support
- swiTT (Swiss technology transfer association)
- SLN (SWISSPHOTONICS NTN)
- IGE (Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property). They help, for example, with assisted patent searches for a flat fee of Fr. 300 per day.
Regional level
- Alliance (for EPFL and Uni Geneva)
- Creapole (for Uni Basel)
Local level: Each University has its own TT office

A separate page describes Steps to TT. If you have questions please contact the Scientific Officer, Jan van Beilen (044 633 2990, email).

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Publishing and patenting

It has to be the central goal of basic research to publish gained knowledge in order to be recognized as the inventor, and to be cited in the academic world. However, through the publication, the novelty of the gained knowledge is destroyed and the commercial rights and benefits cannot be claimed anymore. For technology transfer both publications, as well as patents, are of importance.

The details were discussed at the MUST patent "all hands" workshop on January 11, 2012 (

Cob-Must-2012 (PDF, 1.16 MB))

We recommend two approaches in order to protect the commercial benefits, one for urgent cases and one for non-urgent cases.
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NCCR MUST patent portfolio

The NCCR MUST group has:

32 active patent families (US and WO patents predominently) from 6 of the 15 PIs.
20 of the 32 patent families are within the span of control of NCCR MUST

It is the clear goal of NCCR MUST to generate additional patents in order to support TT activities, i.e. to provide an IP base for start-ups as well as position MUST for collaboration with companies. See:

2014 Must Patents (XLSX, 12 KB).
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