SWITCH is all about the community

One thing that sets SWITCH apart from most companies is the way we work in very close partnership with our customers. They play a key role in helping to design and optimise our services as part of the SWITCH community. The community is organised into various working groups and other bodies for every field in which SWITCH operates – plus a few more, for example dealing with overarching issues such as law. SWITCH manages 17 working, expert and advisory groups.

The benefits members of the community derive from these groups lie not only in their involvement in service development but also in networking and access to information, particularly in the form of training. All of Switzerland’s language regions are represented in the groups: 65% of members are German-speaking, 27% French-speaking, and 8% Italian-speaking. In terms of the types of institution, 43% are from traditional universities, 26% from the Federal Institutes of Technology, 22% from universities of applied sciences, and 9% from universities of teacher education.

The following reports provide an insight into the work done by the SWITCH community in the areas of

• Security (Joining forces against cybercrime)
• Procurement (Procurement: an increasingly complex challenge)
• Identity management (Keeping the Swiss edu-ID grounded in reality)