The partners behind SPIRIT: who funds, runs, advises and evaluates it

SPIRIT works because many institutions take part, from federal agencies and university hospitals to local Red Cross branches and international research centres. This article maps who does what, based on the programme’s own partner list and on public information from the partners themselves.

Project lead

University Hospital Zurich (USZ) initiated SPIRIT and leads it nationally. The SPIRIT network is run jointly by USZ and the University of Zurich (UZH). It coordinates PM+ training and supervision, quality assurance, research and the national network of implementation partners.

Funders

According to the project page and the partner list, SPIRIT is funded by:

• Gesundheitsförderung Schweiz (Health Promotion Switzerland), through its project funding for prevention in health care (PGV)
• University Hospital Zurich (USZ)
• The State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), which co-funds cantonal implementation in most participating cantons
• Cantonal and foundation funders, including integration and health departments in several cantons, the Christoph Merian Stiftung (Basel-Stadt), the Humanitarian Foundation of the Swiss Red Cross (Bern) and Gesundheitsförderung Thurgau

Implementation partners in nine cantons

The partners below run SPIRIT on the ground. They recruit and employ helpers, organise sessions and connect participants with local services.

Canton	Implementation partner
Basel-Landschaft	Swiss Red Cross Baselland
Basel-Stadt	Swiss Red Cross Basel-Stadt, with the canton of Basel-Stadt (in set-up)
Bern	Swiss Red Cross, Canton of Bern
Lucerne	Asylum and Refugee Service of the canton of Lucerne (Group PM+)
Schaffhausen	Swiss Red Cross Schaffhausen (offered until May 2025)
Schwyz	Integration office of the canton of Schwyz and Caritas Switzerland
Thurgau	Swiss Red Cross Thurgau
Vaud	ActLab
Zurich	Swiss Red Cross, Canton of Zurich

In Zurich, the Red Cross states that it delivers SPIRIT in cooperation with USZ. In Bern, its counsellors work in collective accommodation centres.

National sounding board

A sounding board, set up in 2021, links SPIRIT to the federal and cantonal bodies that shape refugee health and integration policy:

• State Secretariat for Migration (SEM)
• Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH)
• Swiss Red Cross
• Support for Torture Victims network, the Swiss network of outpatient clinics for torture and war victims
• Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV)
• Integration office of the canton of Zurich

Scientific advisory board, research and evaluation

SPIRIT’s scientific advisory board brings international expertise in scalable psychological interventions:

• Immigration Policy Lab, ETH Zurich
• WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Dissemination of Psychological Interventions, VU Amsterdam
• Traumatic Stress Clinic, University of New South Wales (UNSW)
• London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
• UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency

The KOF Swiss Economic Institute at ETH Zurich is a research partner. B&A Beratungen und Analysen carries out the overall evaluation. The BRIGHT impact study in the canton of Zurich is conducted with ETH Zurich and UNSW.

The programme also lists a wider circle of “friends and supporters”, including FABIA (Lucerne), Together Human (Basel), the social services for asylum seekers in Obwalden, and Agents de Santé (Geneva).

Why such a broad network?

Refugee mental health sits between sectors. Asylum and integration are funded and governed differently from health care. The qualitative study on scaling up PM+ in Switzerland found that sustainable funding and a stepped-care approach are preconditions for success, and both depend on cooperation between the health, migration and social sectors. SPIRIT’s partner structure reflects that need: federal agencies, cantons, NGOs and researchers working on one model.

Where Spirit X fits

Spirit X Solutions AG is a Zurich-based company that originated at University Hospital Zurich. It provides the digital platform the SPIRIT network uses, with its partners, for screening, triage and research data collection. Spirit X is a CE-marked EU MDR Class IIa medical device that supports consistent assessments across cantons and languages. Read more in Digital screening and triage in SPIRIT.