Science and technology in Switzerland play an important role in the Swiss economy, which has very few natural resources that are available in the country. The Swiss National Science Foundation, mandated by the Federal government, is the most important institute for promoting scientific research.

The raw output of scientific research from Switzerland consistently ranks within the top 20. Switzerland was ranked 1st in the Global Innovation Index in 2025, the same position as 2024, 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2013.

The first university, the University of Basel, was founded in 1460 and today the country has twelve universities.

With 57% of its researchers coming from other countries, Switzerland is the country with the world highest proportion of foreign researchers.

Switzerland Space Agency, the Swiss Space Office, has been involved in various space technologies and programs. In addition it was one of the 10 founders of the European Space Agency in 1975 and is the seventh largest contributor to the ESA budget. In the private sector, several companies are implicated in the space industry such as RUAG Space (payload fairings) or Maxon Motors (mars rovers).

Claude Nicollier is a Swiss Astronaut and flew several missions with the United States space program.

In the field of astronomy, Michel Mayor discovered in 1995, 51 Pegasi b, the first extrasolar planet orbiting a sun-like star.

Leonhard Euler is considered to be the preeminent mathematician of the 18th century and one of the greatest of all time. A statement attributed to Pierre-Simon Laplace expresses Euler's influence on mathematics: "Read Euler, read Euler, he is the master of us all." Euler made important discoveries in fields as diverse as calculus and graph theory. He also introduced much of the modern mathematical terminology and notation, particularly for mathematical analysis, such as the notion of a mathematical function.