The institutionalisation of Gender Studies in Switzerland is the result of the untiring commitment for years of feminist scientists, mainly the members of the association “FemWiss” (founded in 1983). Out of this commitment emerged various chairs and institutes for Gender Studies in the middle of the 1990ies. A few years later, the confederation started the project contributions within the scope of the Swiss Universities Conference (SUC) and swissuniversities, which enabled the institutionalisation of Gender Studies and teaching. Altogether, the promotion of Gender Studies lasted over four finance periods (2000 -2016).
Today most Swiss universities and several universities of applied sciences and universities of teacher education provide courses and lectures in Gender Studies. They range from elementary introduction modules over compulsory courses for all students on to specific graduate school programmes on bachelor and master level. There are different doctoral schools in French and German which are steadily increasing in number. Gender Studies today are institutionalised at Swiss universities, manifold and on a high level.
The Network Gender Studies Switzerland aims at continuously promoting the institutionalisation of teaching Gender Studies at all universities. The Swiss Association for Gender Studies (SGGF/SSEG) was founded in 1997 and unifies the researchers in Gender Studies under the roof of the Swiss Academy of Human and Social Sciences SAHS.