Luciana Vaccaro elected as new president of swissuniversities
Bern (ots)
On October 20, 2022, the plenary assembly of swissuniversities elected Luciana Vaccaro, Rector of the Haute école spécialisée de Suisse occidentale (HES-SO), as President of swissuniversities. Luciana Vaccaro is elected for the period from February 2023 to July 2024, succeeding Yves Flückiger. As Yves Flückiger’s term of office as Rector of the Université de Genève ends in mid-July 2023, he will not be available for a second term as President of swissuniversities.
The President heads the committee and represents swissuniversities and the Swiss university community at national and international level. In electing Luciana Vaccaro, the Plenary Assembly has chosen a person who is committed to a nationally coordinated and internationally successful Swiss university landscape.
For swissuniversities, Luciana Vaccaro highlights four areas of special attention: Continuing efforts to enable Switzerland to participate in European research and education programmes. In view of the next education, research and innovation message, another field of action is to continue to obtain sufficient federal funding for all types of higher education institutes (HEI). In addition, the interdisciplinary knowledge and scientific expertise of the HEI must be made available quickly, efficiently and in a coordinated manner to meet the challenges of society. And last but not least, to ensure the prosperity of our society by securing the next generation of academics, scientists, and professionals. To achieve this, HEI must pay attention to all students and guarantee the quality of the educational experience of everyone.
For Luciana Vaccaro “the Swiss universities offer excellent education and research, which we must ensure with sufficient resources so that they can always better respond to the needs of society. In order to do so, they must develop cooperation at the national and international level, in particular at the European level. swissuniversities will continue to actively engage with the political authorities to ensure long-term participation in European programmes, as well as optimal framework conditions at the national level.”
Luciana Vaccaro holds a master’s degree in physics from the University Federico II of Naples and a PhD in microtechnology from the EPFL. Her research has focused on optics and electromagnetism; in particular, she has developed high-resolution microscopic techniques. Since 2013 she is Rector of the HES-SO.
Contact:
Josefa Haas
swissuniversities
T. 031 335 07 34
communications@swissuniversities.ch
www.swissuniversities.ch