Overview
The State Secretariat for Education and Research (SBF / SER) within the Federal Department of Home Affairs is the Swiss federal government's specialised agency for national and international matters concerning general and university education, research and spatial planning. The SER is responsible for drawing up and implementing policy in these areas and it coordinates related activities within the Federal Administration of Switzerland and ensures cooperation with the cantons.
In particular, in the area of science and research, the SER finances the Swiss National Science Foundation and the scientific academies, promotes research institutes, is responsible for (and finances) Swiss membership in international research organisations and Switzerland's participation in European and international research programmes and cooperation projects, develops Switzerland's international relations and coordinates the federal administration's sectoral research.
The ARAMIS information system contains information regarding research, development and evaluation projects of the Swiss Federal Administration. It aims to provide information to interested parties about the research projects funded or implemented by the Swiss Confederation, as well as to improve co-ordination and establish transparency.
The ARAMIS website is part of a comprehensive information system of the Federal Administration.
ARAMIS was established in 1997 and covers all types of research (not just transport research).
It is designed to:
- Provide interested parties with information about federally run or funded research activities and assessments (transparency),
- Ensure that similar projects are not already being carried out within the Federal Administration (avoid redundancy),
- Provide federal agencies with a simple tool that they can use to manage their research projects more efficiently (management tool).
Database access and search capabilities:
Access to the majority of the ARAMIS database is free and no log-in is required. However there is a "private" section intended for project managers only, which requires a user ID and log-in (only employees of ARAMIS research units involved in ARAMIS research projects are eligible for this).
Projects can be searched for by project name or keyword or by the research unit for which the project was commissioned. There are 107 research units covering all apects of research, mostly government departments and agencies, research institutes, etc, of which around 20-25 have some relevance to transport, some key ones being:
- the Federal Office for Transport,
- the Federal Office for Spatial Development (Transport Co-ordination),
- Swiss Federal Railways (SBB / CFF),
- Swiss Federal Roads Office (FEDRO / ASTRA),
- Centre for Technology Assessment (TA-SWISS).
- Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN),
- Federal Office for Civil Aviation (FOCA),
- Federal Bureau for the Equality of People with Disabilities (FBED),
- etc.
The user interface is available in German, French and English. Project information given is usually in one of these languages, or in Italian.
Projects can also be searched by participant and the search can be narrowed by selecting only ongoing projects, ongoing projects plus projects that have been completed in the last five years, or all projects.
For each project searched for, the following information is provided:
- Project name in original language (German, French or Italian) and English translation;
- Research disciplines covered;
- Government research unit responsible for commissioning the project;
- Start and end dates;
- Total project cost;
- Short abstract of the project (this may be between a few lines to 1 page of text, usually in the language of the project but sometimes translated to another language);
- Contact details of the project co-ordinator.
Only outline information on projects (project aims and activities) are given, not results or final reports.
Results of searches can be sorted by project start or end date, by project co-ordinator, by relevance or by research unit, and lists of results can also be exported to an Excel table.