The workshop is co-organized by the Institute of Italian studies (USI), the Institute of argumentation, linguistics and semiotics (USI) and the Linguistic Research Infrastructure LiRI (UZH). It addresses researchers in the language sciences with the goal of discussing research infrastructure planning in this field in Switzerland. More specifically, it focuses on a proposal that is currently being elaborated by several partners: the Swiss Federated Research Infrastructure for Language Sciences (Swiss FRILS).
Every four years, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI/SBFI) publishes a Roadmap for Research Infrastructures. This document highlights nationally significant infrastructures in Switzerland and outlines the country’s participation in international initiatives. In the language sciences, LiRI (UZH) was included in this roadmap in a previous cycle. In the current roadmap process, earlier in 2025 several institutions, among which LiRI and ISI/IALS, expressed interest in submitting proposals. Rather than advancing separate initiatives, the partners then started thinking about joining forces to develop a single common proposal, also drawing on coordination efforts made by Clarin-CH in the last years and on collaborative ties built in several swissuniversities ORD projects. This is how the idea of Swiss FRILS was born.
The goal of Swiss-FRILS is to establish a national federated infrastructure that:
- provides tools and services for the collection, processing and reuse of data in the language sciences across Swiss universities and research institutions;
- ensures harmonized services at the national level;
- collaborates with CLARIN-CH to communicate with researchers and institutions within Switzerland and to position Switzerland as a strong partner and within the European research infrastructure landscape.
A short proposal outlining the concept received an A-rating from the consortium of Vice Presidents for Research of the participating universities and was assessed positively by swissuniversities. On this basis, we are preparing a full proposal for the SERI roadmap, to be submitted by January 2026.
The workshop proceeds in three phases. In the morning session (10.00-12.00), we will outline the context and goals of the workshop, report on work done so far in the swissuniversities context (Roadmap and Open Research Data program) and collect feedback from workshop participants. After lunch, we will organize two parallel sessions of group discussions (13.30-14.15, 14.15-15.00) on four topics: We will reflect on infrastructure demands and strategic planning at a national level, discuss possible ways for further institutions to get involved in the Swiss FRILS proposal (by joining with an existing or planned infrastructure in the application or making use of services provided by Swiss FRILS) and address issues related to governance and funding. After a short coffee break (15.00-15.15), we will discuss the results of the group work and make decisions about further steps (15.15-16.00).
The event can be attended on site (room 402, fourth floor of the USI main building on the West campus) or via Zoom. Please register here to communicate your presence in the various sessions, on site or online, and to obtain links for online participation.
