Interact: a University-City of Lausanne partnership
The Interact project arose from the observation that collaborations between the City and the University of Lausanne (UNIL) were essentially based on interpersonal relationships and did not benefit from systemic institutional support or enhancement.

In 2014, an inventory of joint initiatives between members or departments of UNIL and the City had identified around fifty very varied projects. Some of these were then studied in more detail in order to understand the ways in which they collaborated, as well as their obstacles and success factors. This work led to the creation of Interact, a project run jointly by the City and UNIL, which encourages and supports collaborations between UNIL researchers and City staff.

To complement this scheme and as part of UNIL’s Interface research fund programme, they’ve published two guide books – one for students and one for researchers.