About the Swiss Clinical Trial Organisation

Translating innovation for better therapies

The Swiss Clinical Trial Organisation is Switzerland’s first and largest academic clinical research infrastructure. It plays a key role in enabling the evidence-based clinical validation of medical innovations and bridging the gap between research and real-world patient benefit.

Since 2017, the SCTO has been a clinical research infrastructure of national importance (according to Article 15 RIPA), funded by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).

The SCTO provides high-quality integrated support and expertise for academic clinical research across all medical disciplines, delivering new and better therapies to society.

Clinical Research Centres (CRC)

The Swiss Clinical Trial Organisation and its CRC Network form a decentralised academic research infrastructure with locations across Switzerland, based at five university hospitals and two cantonal hospitals.

Together, the Clinical Research Centre Network:

Provides local end-to-end support
Offering services for every stage of a clinical study, from design to reporting.
Strengthens academic research capacity
Helping investigators navigate regulatory, operational, and scientific complexities.
Leads the SCTO Platforms of experts in the key area of clinical research nationally
Each CRC leads a specific SCTO Platform of key clinical research areas and contributes to the others.

SCTO Platforms

The SCTO Platforms serve as nationwide centres of excellence, each of the eight SCTO Platforms focuses on a specific thematic area of clinical research.

They contribute by:

Pooling expertise to support innovation
Specialists from across Switzerland lead thematic projects, tackle new challenges and advance study design and delivery.
Developing practical solutions for researchers
Creating tools, templates, and guidance tailored to researchers’ real-world needs.
Harmonising best practices
Promoting consistent, high-quality standards across academic clinical research.

Executive Office (EO)

The Executive Office of the Swiss Clinical Trial Organisation plays a central role in coordinating the organisation’s activities and collaborations.

Its key responsibilities include:

Strategic alignment and governance
Coordinating strategy, projects, and operations across the SCTO while ensuring strong governance, legal compliance, and oversight.
Facilitation and stakeholder engagement
Supporting cooperation with Swiss and European clinical research partners and fostering communication across the research community.
Operational management
Overseeing financial and administrative processes to ensure organisational efficiency.

What Drives Us

Our Vision

Increase the relevance, quality, and impact of academic clinical research in Switzerland.

Our Mission

The SCTO provides high-quality integrated support and expertise for academic clinical research, across all medical disciplines, to deliver new and better therapies to society.

SCTO Strategic Goals

The Swiss Clinical Trial Organisation (SCTO) strengthens academic clinical research in Switzerland. Based on our three pillars: value & innovation, education & the next generation and visibility & transparency, the SCTO fosters high-quality, efficient, and patient-relevant clinical research.

Strategic Goals

Value and Innovation

Strengthen Patient and Public involvement (PPI) in clinical research
Develop harmonisation, (inter)nationally best practices, tools and resources for clinical research
Contribute to a favourable legal and regulatory framework for clinical research
Increase international multicentre studies and harmonisation of training, tools, best practice
Improve clinical research methods
Enhance further harmonisation and interoperability of clinical research data and integration of routine data in clinical research