01
Investigator-led groups
Each group is scientifically autonomous. The principal investigator sets the research agenda, recruits their own team and owns their results. The institute provides the structure, never the direction.
Independent research institute · Switzerland
Science that needs a long horizon, and a home that gives it one.
The Helvetia Institute hosts investigator-led research groups working at the frontier of nanoscience, energy conversion, atomic-scale science and quantum systems — with the independence to pursue difficult questions and the infrastructure to answer them.
2024
Year founded
1
Group hosted
20%
Overhead on hosted grants
100%
Surplus reinvested in research
The institute
A scientific home, built by scientists.
Helvetia was founded on a simple observation: the most consequential research questions rarely fit the shape of a three-year grant or a single department. They need continuity, equipment, and the freedom to be wrong in public.
We are a Swiss non-profit association that gives independent principal investigators exactly that — a legal and operational home for their group, shared access to advanced instrumentation, and an administration that treats grant management, compliance and reporting as its own job rather than the scientist’s.
The institute is deliberately small and deliberately lean. Governance sits with a volunteer Executive Committee; scientific direction sits with practising researchers; and every franc that is not spent on running the institute goes back into the science.
Our model
Three commitments that shape everything we do.
02
Shared, serious infrastructure
Scanning probe microscopy, surface spectroscopy and operando electrochemistry are expensive to own alone and transformative to share. Instrumentation, method development and technical staff are pooled across groups.
03
Administration as a service
Finance, HR, grant administration and compliance are handled centrally at a transparent 20 % overhead — well below what most host institutions charge, and fully accounted for. The overhead buys administration, not salaries: those stay funded from the group’s own grants.
Research
From nano to quantum interfaces.
Our science starts at the surface — the skin of a material, where it meets and negotiates with the world. We nanostructure that boundary atom by atom to build interfaces for energy conversion and for smart antimicrobial materials.
- Antimicrobial surfacesInterfaces that resist colonisation by design rather than by dosing, for clinical and industrial materials.
- Artificial photosynthesisCatalytic interfaces that turn light, water and CO2 into fuels and feedstocks.
- Chirality & spinHow handedness and electron spin govern molecular recognition — and how to use that control in catalysis.
- Host–guest switchesResponsive supramolecular systems that change state on command, from nanoscale to device.
Research groups
One group in residence. Room for the next.
In residence since 2024
Lingenfelder Lab
Led by Dr. Magalí Lingenfelder, the founding group of the institute. The lab studies kinetic processes at the solid–liquid interface using scanning probe microscopy and solid-state spectroscopy, in situ under liquid flow and potential control.
Visit the lab siteOpen call
Your group could be next
We are actively welcoming established principal investigators who bring their own competitive funding. Helvetia provides the legal entity, employment, financial administration and shared facilities — you keep full scientific independence.
- Indicative threshold: CHF 1M+ in secured or incoming funding
- Transparent 20 % overhead, no hidden charges
- Swiss host entity for national and European schemes
We see the surface as the skin of the material — the way it communicates with its environment. We nanostructure it to create atomically tailored interfaces for problems that are genuinely urgent.
Work with us
Help us build Switzerland’s next independent institute.
Whether you lead a group looking for a home, represent an industrial partner with a hard interface problem, or want to support fundamental science philanthropically — we would like to hear from you.