Bern, 15 September 2021 (TDI): Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis and seven ministers and officials from 10 countries in south-eastern Europe attended the summit on Monday. The member countries who joined the project and signed a declaration were Bosnia, Serbia, the Republic of North Macedonia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Albania, the Republic of Kosovo, and Herzegovina.
Martina Hirayama (state secretary for education, research, and innovation), Ambassador Alexandre Fasel (special representative for science diplomacy), and Cassis are present in the forum.
Switzerland held a high-level conference in Bern as part of the southeast European International Institute for Sustainable Technologies (SEEIIST) initiative. The SEEIIST initiative aims to establish a regional center of excellence for biomedical research into cancer treatment in south-eastern Europe. The FDFA’s head reiterated Switzerland’s willingness to support talks between the different partner countries to establish such a facility.
The facility will be dedicated to nuclear biomedical research and will follow CERN’s fundamental ideals. It will focus on the creation of cutting-edge technology for the treatment of certain cancers. Switzerland pursues its foreign policy aims through science diplomacy by supporting the dialogue to establish the SEEIIST facility. Ignazio Cassis stressed the importance of this type of diplomacy, explaining why the FDFA was eager to promote the conversation.
