Paul Scherrer Institute

The Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) is a multi-disciplinary research institute for natural and engineering sciences in Switzerland. It is located in the Canton of Aargau in the municipalities Villigen and Würenlingen on either side of the River Aare, and covers an area over 35 hectares in size.[2] Like ETH Zurich and EPFL, PSI belongs to the ETH Domain of the Swiss Confederation. The PSI employs around 3000 people.[3] It conducts basic and applied research in the fields of matter and materials, human health, and energy and the environment. About 37% of PSI's research activities focus on material sciences, 24% on life sciences, 19% on general energy, 11% on nuclear energy and safety, and 9% on particle physics.[4]

PSI develops, builds and operates large and complex research facilities and makes them available to the national and international scientific communities. In 2017, for example, more than 2,500 researchers from 60 different countries came to PSI to take advantage of the concentration of large-scale research facilities in the same location, which is unique worldwide.[3] About 1,900 experiments are conducted each year at the approximately 40 measuring stations in these facilities.[5]

In recent years, the institute has been one of the largest recipients of money from the Swiss lottery fund.[6]

  1. ^ "Budgetbericht des ETH-Rats für den ETH-Bereich 2024" [Budget Report 2024] (PDF). ETH Board (in German). Retrieved 2024-02-26.
  2. ^ PSI-magazine 5232, issue 3/2018, p. 39
  3. ^ a b "The Paul Scherrer Institute in brief". Retrieved 2019-02-28.
  4. ^ "Facts and figures". Retrieved 2019-02-28.
  5. ^ Walter Hagenbüchle (2018-10-14). "Das Paul-Scherrer-Institut betreibt jene Art von Forschung, die einen langen Atem braucht, Interview mit PSI-Direktor Joël Mesot". Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Retrieved 2019-02-28.
  6. ^ Florian Imbach (2020-01-08). "Lotteriefonds-Auswertung – Vor allem Grossinstitutionen profitieren". srf.ch. Retrieved 2020-01-08.