The aim of the National Competence Center in Biomedical Imaging (NCCBI), for which EPFL is responsible, is to raise imaging in Switzerland to the highest possible level in order to provide medical and biological experts with top-rate technologies – for instance, for carrying out research into degenerative diseases. The intention is also that such imaging in Switzerland should be promoted in a way that goes beyond investment and activities specific to any given institution. The NCCBI is currently working with 30 ETH Zurich, EPFL and PSI institutes and laboratories.
Through this collaboration it has already achieved one of its main goals – namely to coordinate investments for imaging within the ETH Domain and to stimulate closer collaboration between the institutes from this branch of research. Thanks to the NCCBI, teams and researchers are able to tackle projects that go beyond the capabilities of any single institution. The Center therefore concentrates on multidisciplinary and multi-institutional projects of great topicality, importance and urgency that are difficult to fund via normal routes.
The NCCBI provides support extending beyond any institutional boundaries to especially promising doctoral projects and provides the necessary resources. It thus gives young researchers from the biomedical research field the opportunity of an academic career.
Of particular interest to the NCCBI are projects and proposals that could lead to a paradigm change and/or to new technologies in biomedical imaging. The objective is to find ways and means of incorporating previously non-verifiable hypotheses into the research work.
