A marketplace for digital solutions

Pilot project as fundamental building block

"We’re stronger together": This was SWITCH’s motto when it launched the Community Service Hub concept at the end of 2016. It is continuing to refine the idea through the currently active proof of concept. Thanks to the committed support of participating universities, SWITCH has been able to create possible business models for the Community Service Hub and test their feasibility. This procedure ensures that universities’ key needs can be fulfilled in a sustainable manner.

The following organisations are taking part in the pilot project as solution providers: 

• ETH Lausanne – Scientific IT and Application Support (EPFL SCITAS)
• University of Basel – Digital Humanities Lab (DaSCH)
• ETH Zurich – Scientific IT Services (SIS)
• University of Applied Sciences Rapperswil – geodata4edu.ch
• Università della Svizzera italiana – (USI)
• University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland – (SUPSI)
• Swiss Institute for Bioinformatics – (Vital IT)
• SoftwareONE
• SWITCH

Taking part in the project as solution consumers are:

• École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne – (EPFL)
• Zurich University of Applied Sciences – (ZHAW)
• Università della Svizzera italiana – (USI)
• University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland – (SUPSI)

SWITCH as quality assurer

SWITCH serves as a hub for the collection and exchange of IT services between higher education institutions and the various solution providers, and performs quality assurance for the community. It provides transparency regarding the digital services available and makes them accessible to the largest possible community of users. Enabling end users to use digital solutions securely and conveniently leads to significant economies of scale and increases in efficiency, which ultimately benefit the whole community. True to its motto, SWITCH works with its partners for greater capability, convenience and security in the digital world.