On February 12th and 13th, swissnex Boston hosted a parliamentary delegation from Switzerland, consisting of four members of the Swiss Council of State (Staenderat) and the National Council (Nationalrat). The parliamentarians – Peter Briner, FDP; Christian Miesch, SVP; Walter Mueller, FDP; and Johannes Randegger, FDP – are part of the Friends of Switzerland Caucus, and before meeting with their counterparts in Congress in Washington, DC they spent two days in Boston.

The delegation started a very busy day on Tuesday morning with a visit to the Cambridge Innovation Center where the Consulate of Switzerland has its temporary offices. The group was welcomed by Consul Christoph von Arb and met with Tim Rowe, CEO of CIC and Andreas Goeldi, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Buzzient Inc. Andreas talked about his experience as a Swiss entrepreneur in the Boston area. Next on the agenda was a visit to Boston University where Doug Sears, Associate Provost and Assistant to the President for Outreach and Special Initiatives, talked about higher education in the United States. A luncheon followed at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR) with Mark Fishman, President of NIBR and member of the Executive Committee of Novartis. Also attending were Christian Klee, NIBR CFO, Jeff Elton, NIBR COO, and Jeff Lockwood, Executive Director for Communications. The topic was on the “Globalization of Science”.

After a well-deserved break, the members of Parliament visited the construction site of the Swiss Consulate and the future of swissnex Boston at 420 Broadway before meeting with Professor Jacqueline Bhabha who is the Executive Director of the Harvard University Committee on Human Rights Studies to talk about cooperation between Harvard University and Switzerland in the area of human rights. The last meeting of the day took place at Highland Capital Partners where Paul Maeder, Managing General Partner, talked about the role of venture capital in the innovation economy. The day concluded in Lexington where Christoph von Arb welcomed over 90 guests for a reception at his residence while six young Swiss scientists and entrepreneurs from various fields presented on their research and work in the U.S.

On Wednesday morning, the delegation met with a number of Swiss students at MIT to discuss the academic, professional and personal experiences of studying in the United States. Professor Herbert Einstein then met with the group to talk about the background of MIT including his (Swiss) perspective. Following an early light lunch with Claude Bruderlein who presented his research on human security and conflict which is funded by the Political Division IV of the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Afffairs, the group departed to Washington, DC where Ambassador Urs Ziswiler would welcome the group for a reception at his residence the same night.