The portal for human research in Switzerland

kofam.ch is the Federal Office of Public Health’s (FOPH) portal for human research in Switzerland. On this website you’ll find extensive basic information on the regulation of human research in Switzerland as well as various tools for researchers.

News

Sep 17, 2024

How should researchers go about preparing new applications until 1 November 2024?

The enforcement authorities published information for applicants on September 16, 2024, regarding the practical procedure during the transition to the revised ordinances.

Updated instructions and templates are available on the websites of swissethics and Swissmedic.

Further information can be found on the kofam website.

Sep 16, 2024

Reports on the activities of the ethics committees and human research 2023

The statistical report "Human Research in Switzerland 2023" and the summary report "Activities of the Research Ethics Committees 2023" are now available in the "Downloads" section of our website. 

These reports describe biomedical research in Switzerland governed by the Human Research Act for the year 2023. The information comes from BASEC, which is managed by the umbrella organization of research ethics committees (swissethics), and from the individual activity reports of the cantonal research ethics committees (EKOS, EKNZ, KEK-BE, KEK-ZH, CCER, CER-VD and CE-TI).

Jul 2, 2024

Swissmedic reduces the fees for academic clinical trials

Since 1 July 2024, Sponsors of clinical trials with medicinal products, medical devices and novel therapies that are not financed by commercial third-party funding may apply for a fee reduction. Further information can be found on the Swissmedic website:

Medicinal products and ATMPs

Medical devices

Human research

Key points in a nutshell

A brief summary of the key points on human research in Switzerland

Applications & procedure

Requirement to obtain authorisation, categorisation and submission of applications

All information on the requirement to obtain authorisation, categorisation and submission of applications is available here:

SNCTP Portal

Search for studies

Search for registered clinical trials in Switzerland.

Categoriser

Online wizard for categorising human research projects

The categoriser provides help in assigning and categorising your research project according to the provisions of the Human Research Act – good preparation for the submission of your application!

Case studies

A selection of real human research projects

The case study module provides a selection of real human research projects, each with a brief summary. The projects can be filtered according to various criteria.