With 21,000 students, HES-SO is the largest University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland. Its study programs and research activities are divided into six faculties: Arts & Design, Business, Management and Services; Engineering & Architecture; Music and Performing Arts; Health Sciences and Social Work.

Since September 2018, HES-SO has been a Gold member of InnoEnergy, becoming thus the first Swiss institution to join our network of members.

With this partnership, HES-SO aims at:

• Increasing the networking potential of its researchers with key players in the energy sector throughout Europe;
• Allowing its researchers to potentially get funded for innovation projects at the European level, and to be supported for the marketing of products;
• Aligning some of its educational programmes with the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) strategy and to make them more visible at a European level.

Here are some examples of energy domains in which the HES-SO is particularly active and recognized:

• Electric energy: generation, management, transport, distribution, storage, security and smartgrids, both from a hardware and software point of view.
• Other energies: energy efficiency in buildings and industry, network convergence and interoperability, CAD networks and natural gas, use of biomass, optimization of energy conversion technologies (such as heat pumps or fuel cells), integration of hydrogen as a new energy vector.
• Renewable energies: solar energy (photovoltaic and thermal), hydropower, geothermal energy, wind energy.
• Economic and social aspects of energy: new business models, applications of new technologies such as blockchain, territorial and institutional approaches, social acceptance.
• Mobility: integration of electric vehicles and public transport solutions, applications of geomatics to transport, “exceptional” projects such as Solar Stratos or Planet Solar.