VEPOS aims at enhancing the policy oriented competences of federal administrators. On the basis of three case-studies of policy making in Switzerland the Institute of Political Science has developed the concept for a 3-day seminar in which top- and middle-level employees of the federal administration are trained in various aspects of crisis-management. The seminar is held every year in autumn.
Since 1977 VOX is a regularly follow-up survey of 1500 Swiss citizens (700 until 1987, 1000 until 2009); sampled in a multistage procedure combining stratified random and quota sampling. The telephone interviews are carried out by a commercial company (gfs.bern), the Departments of Political Science of the Universities at Bern, Geneva and Zurich are responsible for questionnaire designs, analysis and reporting of results. Realized after each national ballot about referenda and initiatives it concerns most aspects of political life in Switzerland and tries to analyze, who voted, how and why. From a theoretical point of view, the survey mainly follows the sociological and psychological approach of election studies, but short-term influences of issues, media, campaigning and arguments are treated as well.