Value proposition

Science and Innovation foundation to promote «Switzerland as a top location for business and as a place to live»

FUTURE THROUGH INNOVATION

Gebert Rüf Stiftung was established in 1998 by entrepreneur Heinrich Gebert as a science and innovation foundation. As a private funding agency guided by its mission statement «making science effective», it supports entrepreneurial projects which are committed to achieving an impact. Innovative ideas – implemented in an entrepreneurial way - ensure an economically, ecologically and socially sustainable future.

With an annual budget of up to CHF 15 million, it supports the breakthrough of new technologies, but also to lay the foundations for an entrepreneurial mindset and a broad interest in innovation by funding educational and transfer projects.

With its focus on innovation, Gebert Rüf Stiftung fills since 1998 a gap with a leverage effect:

→ 1400 projects supported
→ 800 start-ups founded
→ CHF 270 Mio. funded
→ CHF 8,500 Mio. follow-up funding

«Science & Entrepreneurship» is at the core of GRS’s mission. Since 1998, it has been promoting the entrepreneurial implementation of research and innovation in Switzerland with its «Science Entrepreneurship» program.

The «Kick Foundation» and «Kickfund» initiatives co-initiated by GRS bundle existing funding programs and combine funding and investment in a value chain. The profit-oriented Kickfund systematically invests in Venture Kick finalists and uses part of the return to generate the Kick Foundation pipeline.

With «Education & Entrepreneurship», GRS is supporting new forms of education and teaching in Swiss public schools.

«Science, Business & Society» has been at the center of the foundation's activities since its inception. The foundation bundles its activities under the title «Scientainment» and focuses on low-threshold and multimedia science communication.

With «Stiftung & Schweiz», GRS has been committed to the sustainable promotion of Switzerland as a liberal foundation location for the professionalization of the sector.

Innovation, Technologie, Unternehmertum, Philanthropie, Bildung, Scientainment, Wissenschaftskommunikation, Startup, and Schule