Pierre Debély, ASRH President
When we talk of Community research we nearly always think of large Swiss or European projects financed for the most part by public funds. However one exception to the rule merits attention, namely activities carried out since 1985 in Neuchâtel by the ASRH.
From time to time the Swiss Watch Research Institute (ASRH) proposes to its 80 industrial members multidisciplinary Community research projects in fields such as technical ceramics, toxin-free steels and alloys, plastics, new materials, coatings of all kinds, solid and liquid lubricants, phosphorescent materials, atomic chronometry or measuring instruments.
With a staff reduced to one scientist and one bookkeeping secretary, the ASRH turns to the most competent Swiss and European research institutes to carry out research work. The content of projects is determined by a scientific committee that includes several qualified engineers from the watch industry. Finance is assured by subscriptions from ASRH members; subscribers become partners able to benefit subsequently from the results of the work. Generally, from ten to twenty industrial partners subscribe to projects. Research institutes are then mandated to carry out the research. Meetings convened periodically bring together engineers from watchmaking firms subscribing to the projects – even though they are often competitors – in order to discuss how the work is progressing and provide indispensable support to the university partner.
The ASRH is one of the last platforms where engineers from a large number of watchmaking firms can discuss their problems and find common solutions. The aims of projects are often difficult, otherwise they would be pursued and realised individually. At the end of the project, all partners are free to make use of the results as they see fit in order to set themselves apart from other partners.
Contrary to many research organisations, the ASRH receives no state subsidies. Its view is that a carefully identified and correctly designed Community research project should be able to secure 100% funding from industry, particularly if the latter benefits from the work. The ASRH has always been very discreet in its relations with the outside world. However it has just received the go-ahead from its board of directors to open a website. Contact with the academic world will be greatly simplified as a result.
While assistance in the form of public funding is today widely sought after, both by universities and private firms, a large part of research conducted in Switzerland could follow the path pioneered by the ASRH. In essence it is a matter of initiative and competence. The Swiss watch industry can be proud of having initiated and encouraged Community research under the impulse of such great visionaries as Adrien Jaquerod, first director of the Watchmaking Research Laboratory in 1921; Sydney de Coulon, first president of the Swiss Watch Research Laboratory in 1939; or Yann Richter, first president of the ASRH in 1985.
